UMASS/AMHfcRST 


31EDt.bDD5a04T53 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 


MASSACHUSETTS 

AGRICULTURAL 

COLLEGE 

3  l8S3-nil 

73  

B27  -^— — 

V.2 


AN 


ESSAY     ON    MANURES, 

SUBMITTED  ^-t^lT       Ur^.' 

TO  THE  TRUSTEES  aC^c:^<rh 


MASSACHUSETTS    SOCIETY''"" 


PROMOTING    AGRICULTURE 


FOR  THEIR   PREMIUM. 


BY    SAMUEL    L.   DANA. 


Manure!  are  the  riches  of  the  field. — Ceafth. 


N  c  tu  2  0  r  k  : 

PUBLISHED  BY  C.  M.  SAXTON,  152  FULTON  STREET. 

ALSO,  STRINGER  &  TOWNSEND,  H.  LONG  &  BROTHER,   W.  F.  BURGESS, 

DEWITT  &  DAVENPORT,  WILSON  &  CO.,   DEXTER  &  BROTHER. 

BOSTON  :    REDDING  &  CO.       PHILADELPHIA  :    W.  B. 

ZIEBER,  LINDSAY  &  BLAKISTON. 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


Section  II. 
«  III. 
«  IV. 
"  V. 
«  VI. 
«     VIL 


« 

VIIL 

u 

IX. 

<( 

X. 

tt 

XI. 

« 

XII. 

u 

XIIL 

nam 

Clearing  and  breaking  up,  and  making  compost,  5 
Names  of  substances  found  in  plants,  .  ,  6 
Chemical  substances  defined,  ...      7 

Analysis  of  plants,  10 

Mould,  12 

Manures — their  action,  &c.,  .  .  .  .13 
Shovelling  over  the  compost  heap,  .        .    16 

Carting  out  and  spreading,  .  .  .  .18 
Of  the  action  of  mould  in  cattle  dung,  .  .  30 
Of  the  action  of  the  salts  of  cattle  dung,  .  .  23 
Of  night  soil,  hog  manure,  horse  and  sheep  dung,  2T 
Of  the  circumstances  which  affect  the  quality 

and  quantity  of  animal  dung,  .  .  .28 
The  quality  of  the  dung,.  .         .         .        .32 

Manures  consisting  of  salts,  .  .  .  .36 
Of  the  causes  which  make  urine  better  or  worse^ 

more  or  less,  and  the  modes  of  preserving  it,  39 
Mineral  salts,  or  manures,  .  .  ,  .45 
Of  artificial  nitre  beds,      ...  .47 

Ashes, .49 

Manures  composted  chiefly  of  mould,      .        .    53 


ESSAY. 


SECTION  I. 

OLEABIN&  AOT)  BREAKmO-  UP,  AND  MAKINa  COMPOST. 

There  is  one  thing  settled  in  farming,  stable  manure 
never  fails.  It  always  tells.  There  are  no  two  ways 
about  it.  There  is  here  neither  theory,  nor  specula- 
tion, nor  doubt,  nor  misgiving.  *'  Muck  it  well,  mas- 
ter, and  it  will  come  right,"  is  an  old  proverb.  It  is 
considered  a  fact  so  well  established,  that  nobody 
thinks  of  disputing  it.  There  is  advantage  in  asking 
why  barnyard  manure  never  fails.  The  answer  is 
easy.  It  contains  all  that  plants  need  for  their 
growth.  If  we  know  then  what  plants  contain,  we 
can  easily  tell  what  is  in  manure.  The  whole  doc- 
trine of  manures,  then,  falls  into  two  plain  principles, 
on  which  hang  all  the  law  and  the  "  profits"  of  agri- 
culture. 

1st.  Plants  contain  and  need  certain  substances 
which  are  essential  to  their  growth. 

2d.  Manure  contains  all  those  substances  which 
plants  want.  If,  then,  we  would  find  out  what  it  is 
which  manure  contains,  that  makes  plants  grow,  we 
must  first  find  out  what  a  grown  plant  contains.  This 
cannot  be  done  without  some  little,  a  very  little 
knowledge  of  chemistry.  Do  not  be  startled,  reader. 
I  suppose  that  you  may  know  nothing  of  chemistry, 


6  MANURES, 

no,  not  even  its  terms.  As  a  very  sensible  man,  who 
wrote  letters  on  botany  to  a  young  lady,  said,  to  en- 
courage his  pupil,  it  was  possible  to  be  a  very  good 
botanist  without  knowing  one  plant  by  name,  so  is  it 
possible  to  become  a  very  good  agricultural  chemist, 
without  knowing  little  more  than  the  chemical  names 
of  a  very  few  substances.  You  know  nothing  of 
chemistry,  it  may  be,  and  as  little  of  law;  yet  you 
will  go  to  law,  and  learn  some  of  its  terms  by  a  dear- 
bought  experience.  The  law  terms  are  harder  to 
learn  than  the  chemical  terms. 

NAMES   OF  SUBSTANCES    FOUND  IN    PLAITrS. 

Now  I  fear  that  some  persons,  who  have  followed 
me  thus  far,  will  shut  up  the  book.  It  is,  say  they, 
all  stuff,  book  farming,  and  beyond  \is.  If  one  may 
not  understand  what  manure  is  without  this  learning, 
we  may  as  well  begin  where  our  fathers  ended,  and 
that  was  where  our  forefathers  began  ages  ago.  By  a 
little  law,  however,  picked  up  as  a  juryman,  or  wit- 
ness, selectman,  town  clerk,  justice  of  the  peace,  yea, 
perhaps,  hearing  an  indictment  read,  men  do  come  to 
understand  what  a  lawyer  means  when  he  talks.  So, 
too,  by  a  little  chemical  talk,  a  man  may  learn  what  a 
chemist  means  when  he  talks  of  oxygen,  hydrogen, 
nitrogen,  chlorine,  and  carbon  ;  potash,  soda,  lime, 
(ah,  these  are  old  friends,  the  very  names  make  us 
feel  at  home  again,)  alumina,  magnesia,  iron,  manga- 
nese, and  silex,  sulphur,  and  phosphorus.  Here  is  a 
long  list.  Long  as  it  is,  perhaps  it  will  be  thought 
worth  learning,  when  you  are  told,  that  these  are  the 
names  of  all  the  substances  found  in  .plants,  everyi 
substance  which  they  want.  Out  of  these  is  made 
every  plant.  Every  part  of  every  plant,  from  the 
hyssop  on  the  wall  to  the  mountain  cedar,  contains 
some  or  all  of  these.  Be  not  disheartened.  Look 
over,  reader,  the  hst  again  carefully,  see  how  many 


i.  PBIZE  ESSAY.  7 

are  old  names  of  things  wliich  you  know.  Of  the 
fifteen,  you  know  nearly  one  half  by  name  and  by 
nature.  These  are  potash,  soda,  lime,  magnesia,  iron, 
sulphur.  Perhaps  you  will  add,  that  you  know  car- 
bon is  coal,  or  rather  coal  carbon.  You  have  heard 
from  some  travelling  lecturer  at  your  town  Lyceum, 
that  oxygen  and  hydrogen  together  form  water ;  that 
oxygen  and  nitrogen  form  the  air  you  breathe  ;  that 
nitrogen  and  hydrogen  form  ammonia,  or  sal  volatile, 
which  gives  the  sharp  smell  to  the  smelling  bottle. 
Besides,  the  thing  has  been  said  so  often  that  you 
must  have  heard  it,  that  chlorine,  the  substance  which 
bleaches  in  bleaching  salts,  united  to  soda,  makes 
common  salt ;  or  if  chlorine  is  united  to  ammonia,  sal 
ammoniac  is  formed.  Now  by  changes  and  combina- 
tions among  these  fifteen  things,  nature  makes  every- 
thing we  find  in  plants.  Many  of  these  are  invisible 
as  is  the  air.  The  substance  called  chlorine  perhaps 
you  have  never  seen,  but  if  you  ever  smelt  it  you 
will  never  forget  it.  It  is  often  smelt  in  a  piece  of 
bleached  cotton,  when  opened  in  the  shops.  It  gives 
the  smell  to  bleaching  powder  used  to  disinfect  the 
air,  during  cholera  and  other  diseases.  If  you  could 
see  it,  it  would  appear  merely  a  faint  yellowish- 
green  air.  It  is  all-powerful  on  vegetation.  As  it 
forms  a  part  of  common  salt,  say  half  of  its  weight, 
we  may  dismiss  the  further  consideration  of  it,  by 
saying,  that,  in  some  shape  or  other,  chlorine  is  uni- 
versally diffused  in  soil  and  plants. 

CHEMICAL   SUBSTANCES  DEFINED. 

The  list  above  may  be  divided  as  follows  : — First, 
the  airy  or  volatile ;  secondly,  the  earths  and  metals ; 
thirdly,  the  alkalies ;  fourthly,  the  inflammables.  Only 
the  third  and  fourth  divisions  require  to  be  explained 
or  defined.  The  substances  called  potash  and  soda 
are  termed  alkalies.     They  are  said  to  have  alkaline 


8  MA^a^RES. 

f)roperties.  Touch  your  tongue  with  a  bit  of  quick- 
ime :  it  has  a  hot,  burning,  bitter  taste.  These  are 
called  alkaline  properties.  Besides  these,  they  have 
the  power  of  combining  with  and  taking  the  sours  out 
of  all  sour  liquids  or  acids ;  that  is,  the  acid  and  the 
alkali  neutralize  each  other.  This  word  alkali  is  of 
Arabic  origin ;  its  very  name  shows  one  of  the  pro- 
perties of  alkalies.  Kali  is  the  Arabic  word  for  bitter, 
and  al  is  like  our  word  super :  we  say  fine  and  super- 
fine ;  so  kali  is  bitter ;  alkali,  superlatively  bitter,  or 
truly,  alkali  means,  the  "  dregs  of  bitterness." 

I  wish,  reader,  for  your  own  sake,  as  well  as  my 
own,  that  you  should  fix  in  your  mind  what  I  have 
said  about  alkali  and  alkaline  properties.  Alkali  is  a 
general  term.  It  includes  all  those  substances  which 
have  an  action  like  the  ley  of  wood  ashes,  which  you 
use  for  soap  making.  If  this  ley  is  boiled  down  dry, 
you  know  it  forms  potash.  Now  lime,  fresh  slacked, 
has  the  alkaline  properties  of  potash,  but  weaker,  and 
so  has  the  calcined  magnesia  of  the  shops,  but  in  less 
degree  than  lime.  Here  we  have  two  substances, 
earthy  in  their  look,  having  alkaline  properties.  They 
are  called,  therefore,  alkaline  earths.  But  what  we 
understand  chiefly  by  the  term  alkalies,  means  pot- 
ash, soda,  and  ammonia.  Potash  is  the  alkali  of  land 
plants ;  soda  is  the  alkali  of  sea  plants ;  and  ammonia 
is  the  alkali  of  animal  substances.  Potash  and  soda 
are  fixed  ;  that  is,  not  easily  raised  in  vapor  by  fire. 
Ammonia  always  exists  as  vapor  unless  fixed  by 
something  else.  Hence  we  have  a  distinction  among 
alkalies  which  is  easily  remembered.  This  distinction 
is  founded  on  the  source  from  which  they  are  pro- 
cured, and  upon  their  nature  when  heated.  Potash 
is  vegetable  alkali,  derived  from  land  plants ;  soda  is 
marine  alkali,  derived  from  sea  plants ;  ammonia  is 
animal  alkali,  derived  from  animal  substances.  Pot- 
ash and  soda  are  fixed  alkalies ;  ammonia  is  a  volatile 
alkali.    Potash  makes  soft  soap,  with  grease,  and  soda 


A  PRIZE  ESSAY.  9 

forms  hard  soap.  Ammonia  forms  neither  hard  nor 
soft ;  it  makes,  with  oil,  a  kind  of  ointment,  used  to 
rub  a  sore  throat  with,  under  the  name  of  volatile 
liniment.  But  though  there  be  these  three  alkalies, 
and  two  alkaline  earths,  I  want  you  to  fix  in  your 
mind,  reader,  that  they  all  have  common  properties, 
called  alkaline,  and  which  will  enable  you  to  un- 
derstand their  action,  without  more  ado  about  their 
chemistry. 

The  inflammables,  or  our  fourth  division,  are  sul- 
phur and  phosphorus;  both  used  in  making  friction 
matches.  The  phosphorus  first  takes  fire,  by  rubbing, 
and  this  sets  the  sulphur  burning.  Now,  the  smoke 
arising  from  these  is  only  the  sulphur  and  phosphorus 
united  to  the  vital  part  of  the  common  air.  This 
compound  of  vital  air,  or  oxygen,  as  it  is  called,  and 
inflammables,  forms  acids,  called  sulphuric  and  phos- 
phoric acids.  So  if  you  burn  coal,  or  carbon,  it  is  well 
known  you  form  fixed  air,  or  carbonic  acid.  That  is, 
by  burning,  the  coal  or  carbon  unites  with  the  oxygen 
or  vital  part  of  common  air,  and  forms  carbonic  acid. 
The  heavy,  deadly  air,  which  arises  from  burning 
charcoal,  has  all  the  properties  of  an  acid.  And  now 
let  us  see  what  these  properties  are.  All  acids  unite 
or  combine  with  the  alkalies,  alkaline  earths,  and  the 
metals.  When  acids  and  alkalies  do  thus  unite,  they 
each  lose  their  distinguishing  properties.  They  form 
a  new  substance,  called  a  salt.  It  is  very  important 
you  should  fix  well  in  jour  mind  this  definition  of  a 
salt.  You  are  not  to  confine  your  idea  of  a  salt  to 
common  salt.  That  is  a  capital  example  of  the  whole 
class.  It  is  soda,  an  alkali,  united  to  an  acid,  or 
chlorine ;  or,  to  speak  in  the  terms  the  most  intelligi- 
ble, to  muriatic  acid.  So  saltpetre  is  a  salt.  It  is 
potash  united  to  aqua-fortis.  Yet  in  saltpetre  you 
perceive  neither  potash  nor  aqua-fortis.  These  have 
united,  their  characters  are  neutralized  by  each  other. 
They  have  formed  a  neutral  salt.  Our  list  of  sub- 
1* 


10  MANURES. 

stances  found  in  plants  is  thus  reduced  from  things 
u'liicU  you  did  not  know,  to  things  which  you  do 
know  ;  and  so  we  have  saved  the  trouble  of  learning 
more  of  their  chemistry. 

"We  have  reduced  the  airy  or  volatile  into  water, 
formed  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen ;  or  volatile  alkali, 
formed  of  nitrogen  and  hydrogen ;  or  into  acids,  as 
the  carbonic,  formed  of  oxygen  and  carbon — as  the 
sulphuric,  formed  of  oxygen  and  sulphur — as  the 
phosphoric,  formed  of  oxygen  and  phosphorus ;  and 
having  thus  got  water  and  acids,  these  unite  with  all 
the  alkaline,  earthy,  and  metallic  bodies,  and  form 
salts.  To  give  you  new  examples  of  these,  I  may 
mention  Glauber's  salts  and  Epsom  salts.  Glauber's 
salt  is  formed  of  soda  and  sulphuric  acid ;  Epsom 
salts,  of  magnesia  and  sulphuric  acid ;  alum,  of 
alumina,  or  clay  and  sulphuric  acid ;  green  vitriol,  of 
iron  and  sulphuric  acid ;  white  vitriol,  of  zinc  and 
sulphuric  acid ;  plaster  of  paris,  of  lime  and  sulphuric 
acid ;  bones,  of  lime  and  phosphoric  acid ;  chalk  and 
limestone,  of  lime  and  carbonic  acid.  These  are  all 
examples  of  salts  ;  that  is,  an  acid,  or  a  substance  act- 
ing the  part  of  an  acid,  united  to  an  alkali,  metal,  or 
earth. 

ANALYSIS  OF  PLANTS. 

We  have  thus  gone  over,  in  a  very  general  way, 
enough  of  chemistry  for  any  one  to  understand  the 
chemical  nature  of  manure.  You  see,  reader,  that 
with  common  attention,  bestowed  for  an  evening's 
reading,  one  may  learn  these  chemical  terms  and  their 
meaning.  And  now,  having  learned  this  first  lesson, 
let  us  review  the  ground  gone  over,  and  fix,  once  and 
for  all,  these  first  principles  in  our  minds.  Let  us  do 
this,  by  a  practical  application  of  the  knowledge  we 
have  gained.  Let  us  analyze  a  p'lant.  Do  not  be 
startled  at  the  word.  To  analyze,  means  to  separate 
a  compound  substance  into  the  several  substances 


A   PRIZE   ESSAY.  11 

whicli  form  it.  This  may  be  done  hj  a  very  particu- 
lar and  minute,  or  by  a  more  general  division.  It 
may  be  done  for  our  present  purpose,  by  separating 
the  several  substances  of  a  plant  into  classes  of  com- 
pounds. You  are  already  chemist  enough  to  under- 
take this  mode  of  analysis ;  in  truth  you  have  already 
done  it,  again  and  again.  For  our  purpose,  the  an- 
cient chemists  had  a  very  good  division  of  all  matter 
into  four  elements ;  fire,  air,  earth,  and  water.  Now, 
by  fire  you  separate  plants  into  the  other  three  ele- 
ments. You  are,  reader,  though  perhaps  you  do  not 
know  it,  somewhat  of  a  practical  chemist.  Whenever 
you  have  burned  a  charcoal  pit,  what  did  you  ?  You 
separated  the  wood  into  air,  water,  and  earth. 

You  drove  off  by  heat  or  fire  the  airy  or  volatile 
parts  of  the  plant:  you  left  its  carbon,  or  coal ;  if  you 
had  burnt  this,  you  would  have  left  ashes.  Now  these 
ashes  are  the  earthy  parts  of  plants.  If  you  burn  a 
green  stick  of  wood,  you  drive  off  first  its  water  and 
volatile  parts,  which  form  soot.  You  burn  its  carbon, 
and  leave  its  ashes,  or  salts.  So  that  by  simply  burn- 
ing, you  reduce  the  substance  or  elements  of  plants  to 
water,  carbon,  salts.  All  plants  then,  without  excep- 
tion, contain  the  several  substances  in  our  list  above, 
as  water,  carbon,  and  salts.  To  apply  this  knowledge 
to  manure,  we  must  say  a  word  on  the  form  in  which 
some  of  these,  which  we  call  the  elements  of  plants, 
exist  in  them.  The  sap  is  water ;  it  holds  dissolved 
in  it  some  salts  of  the  plant.  This  sap,  or  juice,  forms 
a  pretty  large  proportion  of  the  roots,  say  seventy-five 
to  eighty  parts  in  one  hundred,  of  potatoes,  turnips, 
beets,  &c.  This  may  be  called  the  water  of  vegeta- 
tion. If  we  dry  beet  root,  or  any  other  plant,  we 
merely  drive  off"  this  water  of  vegetation.  Now  what 
have  we  left  ?  To  go  back  to  our  process  cf  analysis, 
let  us  char  the  dried  root.  We  drive  off  more  water 
and  volatile  parts.  This  water  did  not  exist,  as  such, 
in  the  plant.     It  existed  there  as  hydrogen  and  oxy- 


12  MANURES. 

gen  gas.  Now  this  word  gas  is  a  chemical  term,  and 
it  means  any  substance  in  vapor,  which  cannot  be 
condensed  into  a  liquid  or  solid,  at  common  tempera- 
tures. Different  gases  may  unite,  and  so  become 
solids  or  liquids.  Steam  is  not  gas,  for  it  is  the  vapor 
of  water,  and  immediately  returns  to  the  state  of 
water,  below  212°.  Perfect  steam  is  invisible,  so  are 
most  gases.  The  air  we  breathe  is  composed  of  two 
gases,  oxygen  and  nitrogen.  We  do  not  see  them ; 
we  cannot,  by  cooling  or  compression,  make  air  take 
other  shape  than  invisible  air.     This  is  the  general 

Sroperty  of  gas,  as  distinguished  from  vapor  or  steam. 
>xygen  and  hydrogen,  in  plants,  exist  in  just  the 
proportions  to  form  water,  but  we  do  not  know  that 
they  are  united  in  these  proportions.  We  have  com- 
pelled them  to  unite,  by  heating  the  substance  or 
root.  The  carbon  is  by  this  same  process  consumed, 
and,  you  know,  has  thus  formed  carbonic  acid.  Be- 
sides this,  a  portion  of  the  carbon  unites  with  some  of 
the  hydrogen  of  the  plant.  This  forms  light,  inflam- 
mable air.  Now  you  may  collect  this  light,  inflam- 
mable air,  in  any  stagnant  water  where  plants  are 
decaying.  Decay  gives  exactly  the  same  products  as 
are  formed  in  making  charcoal.  Decay  is  only  slow 
combustion,  or  burning;  no  matter  whether  we  char 
the  plant  or  leave  it  to  decay,  we  obtain  exactly  the 
same  products  as  we  did  by  our  analysis,  that  is, 
carbon  and  salts. 

MOULD.    . 

But  because  there  is  not  heat  enough,  we  leave  by 
decay  a  portion  of  the  hydrogen  and  oxygen  still 
united  to  the  coal.  A  slow  mouldering  fire  leaves  pro- 
ducts more  hke  those  of  decay.  Decay  is  a  slow, 
mouldering  fire ;  hence  the  products  of  the  decay  of 
plants  are  very  aptly  termed  mould.  It  is  the  pro- 
duct of  a  mouldering  fire;  that  is,  an  imperceptible 
union  of  the  oxygen  of  the  air  with  the  carbon  of  the 


A  PRIZE    ESSAY.  18 

plant.  A  union  so  slow,  that  it  gives  out  neither  heat 
nor  light.  And  jet  it  is  in  its  results,  the  same  as  if 
fire  had  actually  been  seen  and  felt.  Mould  contains, 
then,  a  part  of  the  carbon,  oxygen,  and  hydrogen,  or, 
if  you  like  the  terms  better,  mould  of  soil  consists  of 
the  water  and  coal  and  salts  of  the  plants.  Mould  is 
truly  manure.  If  the  mould  of  soil,  as  it  has  thus 
been  defined,  were  separated  from  the  earthy  portions 
of  soil,  it  would  deprive  that  soil  of  the  power  of 
growing  crops.  Here,  then,  we  come  to  a  broad  dis- 
tinction between  soil  and  manure.  The  soil  is  the 
earth  on  which  plants  grow.  The  mould  is  the  ma- 
nure of  that  soil.  The  soil  is  the  earthy — the  mould, 
that  is,  the  carbon  and  salts,  together  with  the  ele- 
ments of  water,  are  the  vegetable  part  of  arable  land. 
But  though  the  earthy  part,  the  soil,  as  it  is  usually 
called,  acts  as  a  support,  on  which  plants  grow,  it 
does  not  play  a  merely  mechanical  part.  It  has  a 
distinct,  decided,  and  important  action  upon  the  ma- 
nure. This  action  is  chiefly  chemical ;  and  the  fact 
that  soils  and  manures  do  mutually  affect  the  growing 
plant,  is  proved  by  the  circumstance,  that  the  first 
plants  which  grew  derived  their  salts  from  the  earth. 

MANURES— THEIR   ACTION,   ETO, 

But  this  chemical  action  of  soil  does  not  belong  to 
the  present  discussion.  We  can  understand  what 
manures  are,  without  deciding  how  they  act.  We  can 
theorize  and  guess  about  the  how  of  their  action,  when 
we  have  learned  what  they  are.  That  is  chiefly  what 
the  farmer  wants  to  know.  He  wants  to  know  what 
manure  is,  and  what  is  likely  to  act  as  a  manure.  To 
these  points,  we  shall  confine  our  present  remarks. 
Pointing  out  the  great  principles  applicable  to  all 
manures,  the  nature  of  soils,  and  the  manner  in  which 
they  affect  manures,  must  be  left  for  another  essay. 
The  vegetable  or  manure  part  of  soil  alone,  is  now  to 
be  considered.  Consider,  now,  reader,  the  great  re- 
sults to  which  our  analysis  has  led  us ;  that  a  slow, 


14.  MANURES. 

mouldering  fire  gives  us  tlie  same  products  as  are 
formed  by  decay  ;  that  this  is  only  a  «low,  mouldering 
fire,  and  that  mould,  its  product,  is  the  natural  manure 
of  plants.  It  follows,  that  whatever  substance  produces 
mould,  that  is,  water,  carbon,  and  salts,  may  be  used 
instead  of  this  natural  manure.  Among  the  salts 
found  in  mould,  some  are  volatile,  and  are  easily  dis- 
solved by  water.  Others  are  fixed,  that  is,  not  evapo- 
rating easily,  or  not  at  all-,  and  are  quite  insoluble  in 
water.  Now  the  first,  or  volatile  and  soluble,  first 
act  when  used  in.  manure.  They  act  quick,  and  are 
quickly  done.  The  fixed  and  insoluble  act  slower, 
they  last  longer.  The  volatile  act  in  the  early  stages 
of  growth,  the  fixed  in  the  later  periods.  The  great 
difference  in  the  action  of  manures,  depends  almost 
entirely  upon  the  salts  which  they  contain.  These 
are  the  most  important  and  essential.  It  is  not  so 
much  the  vegetable  mould  of  manure  which  you  want, 
as  the  salts  which  it  contains.  This  is  a  well-settled 
principle.  Land  which  has  undergone  the  skinning 
process,  old,  worn-out,  and  run-out  land,  still  contains 
a  very  large  portion  of  vegetable  matter ;  the  coal  or 
carbon  of  mould  without  its  salts.  Give  this  worn- 
out  land  salts,  and  you  may,  by  these  alone,  bring  it 
back  not  only  to  its  first  virgin  freshness,  but  you 
may  even  by  salts  alone  make  it  fairer  and  richer  than 
it  was  before  man  ever  cultivated  it. 

Too  much  stress  has  been  all  along  laid  upon  the 
kind  of-soil.  Gro  now  to  "  Flob,"  in  West  Cambridge; 
no  better  farms  or  farmers,  look  the  world  through. 
Ask  any  of  these  practical  men,  whether  the  sandy 
and  gravelly  soil  of  Old  Cambridge  Common,  or  even 
of  Seekonk  Plain,  can  be  n  ade  to  bear  as  rich  crops 
as  their  land?  They  will  tell  you  yea.  If  your  land 
will  hold  manure,  muck  it  well  and  it  will  be  as  good. 
Now,  this  holding  of  manure  belongs  to  the  subject 
of  soils,  and  throwing  that  out  of  consideration,  it  is 
found  that  even  lands  which  do  not  hold  manure, 
which  have  been  worn  out  and  exhausted  by  cropping, 


A   PRIZE   ESSAY.  15 

hold  yet  a  great  deal  of  insoluble  coal  of  mould. 
They  want  salts,  and  something  which  wil  make  this 
inert,  dead  vegetable  matter  of  the  soil  a  .'tive.  The 
mould  is  active  in  proportion  as  it  is  more  or  less  dis- 
solved by  water.  Mould  consists  of  two  parts  ;  one  is 
dissolved,  though  only  in  a  slight  degree,  by  water ; 
the  other  is  not  dissolved  by  water.  Some  substances, 
however,  do  render  mould  very  easily  dissolved  by 
water.  Hence,  if  you  reflect  a  moment  on  these  facts, 
it  will  be  seen  that  mould  itself,  being  valuable  in 
proportion  to  the  ease  with  which  water  dissolves  it, 
that  whatever  substance  so  enables  mould  to  dissolve, 
may  be  added  to  it,  and  thus  increase  its  value.  Now 
the  things  which  do  this  are  the  alkalies,  soda,  potash, 
and  ammonia.  These  principles  being  well  settled, 
we  may  enter  on  the  consideration  of  each  different 
manure.  They  will  be  valuable  in  proportion  to  the 
quantity  and  kind  of  salts  each  contains,  added  to  the 
power  they  may  have  of  producing  by  their  decay 
substances  which  make  their  mould  soluble.  Now 
this  last  property,  that  is,  the  property  of  producing 
a  substance  which  makes  mould  soluble,  depends 
wholly  upon  the  nitrogen  of  the  manure.  Ttiis  nitro- 
gen, in  the  process  of  decay,  becomes  volatile  alkali 
or  ammonia.  The  word  ammonia  will  occur  so  often 
in  the  present  discussion,  that  we  should  endeavor  to 
fix  some  definite  idea  to  it.  You  need  not,  reader,  be 
acquainted  with  all  its  chemical  properties.  I  suppose 
every  man  who  will  be  likely  to  read  these  remarks, 
has  smelled  ammonia.  It  has  been  already  said,  that 
it  gives  the  peculiar  pungent  snrell  to  the  common 
smelling  bottle. 

This  is  volatile  ammonia.  It  is  always  formed 
when  animal  or  vegetable  bodies  decay. 

It  has  been  already  said,  and  is  now  repeated,  in 
order  that  it  may  never  be  forgotton,  that  ammonia  is 
formed  by  the  union  of  hydrogen  and  nitrogen.  Hy- 
drogen and  nitrogen,  two  airs,  nitrogen  forming  four 
fifths  of  the  air  we  breathe ;  let  that  be  borne  in  mind, 


18  MANURES. 

and  without  goin^  into  the  chemistry  of  ammonia 
further,  or  the  mode  of  calculating  how  much  ammo- 
nia a  pound  of  nitrogen  will  make,  it  may  be  laid 
down,  and  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  every  pound 
of  nitrogen  may  be  called  two  and  a  half  pounds  of 
sal  volatile,  or  smelling  salts,  of  the  smelling  bottle. 
Two  and  a  half  pounds  of  volatile  ammonia  formed 
from  one  pound  of  nitrogen.  K,  then,  we  can  deter- 
mine, as  chemistry  may,  how  much  nitrogen  exists  or 
forms  a  part  of  manure,  two  and  a  half  times  that  will 
be  the  ammonia  of  that  manure.  If  then  the  vegeta- 
ble part  of  manure  is,  as  we  have  said,  valuable  and 
active,  in  proportion  to  its  degree  of  being  dissolved 
by  water,  then,  as  ammonia  gives  it  this  easy  solu- 
bility, we  may  safely  say,  that  the  quantity  of  nitro- 
gen in  manure  is  the  measure  of  the  value  of  its 
vegetable  part.  One  thing  must  be  guarded  against, 
not  to  place  from  this  view  the  whole  of  the  value  of 
manure  upon  its  ammonia.  Remember  that  manure 
consists  of  carbon,  water,  and  salts.  The  whole  are 
equally  essential  to  its  action.  There  is  no  eye,  nor 
ear,  nor  foot,  nor  hand  in  manure,  which  may  say  to 
the  other  members,  "  I  have  no  need  of  thee."  The 
whole  act  together ;  but  it  is  not  to  be  doubted,  that 
ammonia  is  the  heart  of  manure,  and  keeps  up  the 
healthy  circulation  among  the  other  members. 


SECTION   II. 

SHOVELUNO  OVER  THE   COMPOST  HEAP. 

The  above  remarks  may  be  called  our  compost 
heap.  It  must  be  well  shovelled  over.  You  must^ 
reader,  before  you  cart  it  out  and  spread  it,  under- 
stand well  what  this  compost  contains.    Now  just  let 


A   PRIZE    ESSAY.  17 

me  turn  over  a  few  shovelfuls,  and  fork  out  the  main 
points  to  which  I  wish  to  call  your  attention. 

1st,  That  all  plants  find  in  stable  manure  everything 
they  want. 

2d.  That  stable  manure  consists  of  water,  coal,  and 
salts. 

3d.  That  these,  water,  coal,  and  salts,  consist  in  all 
plants  of  certain  substances,  in  number  fifteen,  which 
are  called, 

1.  Oxygen,  2.  Hydrogen,  3.  Nitrogen,  4.  Carbon, 
5.  Sulphur,  6.  Phosphorus,  7.  Potash,  8.  Soda,  9.  Lime, 
10.  Magnesia,  11.  Alumina,  or  clay,  12.  Iron,  13. 
Manganese,  14.  Chlorine,  which  last,  as  we  have  said, 
forms  about  one  half  the  weight  of  common  salt,  15. 
Silex.  And  if  you  always  associate  with  the  word 
chlorine,  the  fertilizing  properties  of  common  salt,  you 
will,  perhaps,  have  as  good  an  idea  of  this  substance 
as  a  farmer  need  have,  to  understand  the  action  of 
chlorine. 

4th.  These  fifteen  substances  may  be  divided  into 
four  classes. 

(1.)  The  airy  or  gases,  oxygen,  hydrogen,  nitrogen, 
and  chlorine. 

(2.)  The  earths  and  metals,  lime,  clay,  magnesia, 
iron,  manganese,  and  silex. 

(3.)  The  alkalies,  potash  and  soda. 

(4.)  The  combustibles,  carbon,  sulphur,  and  phos- 
phorus. 

You  may  be  surprised  that  I  have  not  turned  up 
ammonia,  but  this  exists  in  plants  as  hydrogen  and 
nitrogen. 

5th.  The  term  salt  includes  a  vast  variety  of  sub- 
stances, formed  of  alkalies,  earths,  and  metals,  com- 
bined with  acids.  Fix  well  the  meaning  of  this  term 
in  your  mind,  and  remember  the  distinction  pointed 
out,  that  some  salts  are  volatile,  and  act  quick  in 
manure,  and  others  are  fixed,  and  act  slower. 

6th.  When  plants  die  or  decay,  they  return  to  the 
earth  or  air  these  fifteen  substances.    Those  returned 


18  MANURSfl. 

to  the  eartli  form  mould,  which,  thus  composed  of 
carbon,  salts,  and  water,  is  natural  manure. 

7th.  Mould  consists  of  two  kinds,  one  of  which 
may  be,  and  the  other  cannot  be  dissolved  by  water. 
Alkalies  put  it  into  a  state  to  be  dissolved,  and  in  pro- 
portion as  it  is  dissolved,  it  becomes  valuable  as  a 
manure. 

8th.  If  then  manure  contains  only  water,  carbon, 
and  salts,  any  substance  which  affords  similar  pro- 
ducts may  be  substituted  for  it.  Hence  we  come  to 
a  division  of  manures  into  natural  and  artificial. 
The  consideration  of  these  is  the  carting  out  and 
spreading  of  our  compost.  And  we  shall  first  con- 
sider in  detail  the  natural  manures. 

That  is,  those  which  are  furnished  us  by  the  dung 
and  urine  of  animals,  and  the  manure  or  mould  formed 
by  the  decay  of  animal  bodies  or  plants.  These  are 
truly  the  natural  manures,  consisting  of  water,  mould, 
and  salts.  This  is  all  that  is  found  in  cattle  dung. 
This  being  premised,  we  may  divide  manures,  reader, 
for  your  more  convenient  consideration,  not  by  their 
origin,  but  by  their  composition.  We  may  divide 
manures  into  these  three  classes :  First,  those  consist- 
ing of  vegetable  or  animal  matter,  called  mould ;  Se- 
condly, those  consisting  chiefly  of  salts;  Thirdly, 
those  consisting  of  a  mixture  of  these  two  classes. 
And,  beginning  with  the  last  first,  we  will  now  proceed 
to  their  consideration. 


SECTION    III. 

CARTING    OUT    AND   SPREADING-. 

The  general  chemical  information  set  forth  in  the' 
preceding  sections  will  be  of  no  service  to  you,  reader, 
if  it  conducts  you  not  beyond  the  result  arrived  at  in 


A    PiJZE    ESSAY.  19 

the  close  of  tHe  last  section,  that  cattle  dung  is  com- 
posed of 'water,  mould,  and  salts. 

You  want  to  know  what  salts,  and  how  they  act. 
If  jou  understand  this,  you  may  be  able  to  say  before- 
hand, whether  other  things,  supposing  their  nature 
understood,  can  take  the  place  of  the  mould  and  salts. 

The  mould,  then,  of  cattle  dung,  as  of  all  other 
mould,  contains  the  following  substances : — 

The  water  consists  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen. 

The  mould  consists  of  carbon,  oxygen,  hydrogen, 
nitrogen,  and  ammonia. 

Thus  it  is  seen,  that  the  mould  contains  all  the  sub- 
stances found  in  the  first  class  into  which  the  elements 
of  plants  were  divided.  The  salts  contain  the  sulphur, 
phosphorus,  and  the  carbon  as  sulphuric,  phosphoric, 
and  carbonic  acids,  and  the  chlorine,  as  muriatic  acid, 
or  spirits  of  salt. 

The  acids,  formed  of  the  elements  of  the  fourth  class 
of  the  substances  entering  into  plants,  are  combined 
with  those  of  the  second  and  third  classes,  namely, 
the  potash,  soda,  lime,  clay,  magnesia,  iron,  and  man- 
ganese. Here,  then,  we  have  all  the  elements  of 
plants,  found  in  cattle  dung.  Let  us  detail  their 
several  proportions.  We  have  all  that  plants  need, 
distributed  in  cattle  dung,  as  follows  : — 

In  100  lbs.  of  clear  cattle  dung  are, 

Water, 83.60 

Mould,  composed  of  hay,        .         .        .  14.00 

Bile  and  slime,         ....  1.275 
Albumen,    a    substance    like    the 

white  of  an  egg,       .        .        .  0.175 

Salts,  silica,  or  sand, 0.14 

Potash,  united  to  oil  of  vitriol,  form- 
ing a  salt,  .  .  .  .  0.05 
Potash,  united  to  acid  of  mould,  .  0.07 
Common  salt,  ....  0.08 
Bonedust,  or  phosphate  of  lime,  .  0.23 
Plaster  of  Paris,  ....  0.12 


20  MANURES. 

Chalk,  or  carbonate  of  lime,    .         .       0.12 
Magnesia,   iron,   manganese,   clay, 
united  to  the  several  acids  above,      0.14 

100.00 


SECTION    IV. 

OF  THE  ACTION  Or  MOULD  m  CATTLE  DUNO. 

Here,  then,  we  have  cattle  dung  with  its  several 
ingredients  spread  out  before  us. 

We  have  now  to  study  its  action.  We  need  here 
consider  only  the  salts  and  mould.  The  water  is  only 
water,  and  has  no  other  action  than  water.  The 
mould  includes  the  hay,  for  that  has  by  chewing,  and 
the  action  of  the  beast's  stomach,  lost  so  much  of  its 
character,  that,  mingled  with  the  slime  and  bile,  &c., 
it  more  rapidly  decays  than  fresh  hay  would,  placed 
in  similar  circumstances.  During  this  act  of  decay, 
as  you  have  already  learned,  the  volatile  parts  of  the 
mould  are  given  off  in  part.  These  escape  as  in 
burning  wood,  as  water  or  steam,  carbonic  acid,  and 
ammonia.  In  consequence  of  this  slow  mouldering 
fire  or  decay,  the  manure  heats.  Here  then  we  have 
three  very  decided  and  important  actions  produced 
by  the  vegetable  part  or  mould  of  cattle  dung.  First, 
carbonic  acid  is  given  off;  second,  ammonia  is  form- 
ed ;  third,  heat  is  produced.  Let  us  now  consider 
each  of  these,  and  their  effects. 

Firstly,  the  great  action  of  the  carbonic  acid  is 
upon  the  soil,  its  earthy  parts.  It  has  the  same  action 
on  these,  that  air,  rain,  frost,  have;  it  divides  and 
reduces  them.  It  not  only  reduces  them  to  powder, 
but  it  extracts  from  the  earth  potash,  and  the  alkalies. 
This  is  a  very  important  act,  and  shows  why  it  is 
necessary  that  decay,  or  fermentation,  should  take 
place  in  and  under  the  soil  among  sprouting  seeds 


A  PRIZE    ESSAY.  21 

and  growing  roots,  in  order  that  they  may  obtain  from 
the  soil  the  salts  they  want. 

If  well-rotted  manure  contains  abundance  of  these 
salts,  ready  formed  in  its  mould,  then  there  will  be 
less  necessity  of  this  action  of  carbonic  acid.  But  here 
again  it  must  be  remembered,  that  this  abundance  of 
salts,  ready  formed  in  mould,  can  be  produced  only 
at  the  expense  of  great  loss  by  fermentation  of  real 
valuable  parts ;  for, 

2d.  The  next  great  action  of  the  mould  of  cattle 
dung  is,  to  produce  or  form  ammonia.  This  plays  a 
threefold  part :  its  first  action  is,  to  render  the  mould 
more  soluble ;  this  action  it  possesses  in  common  with 
the  fixed  alkalies — potash  and  soda.  All  the  alkalies 
put  a  large,  but  undefined  portion  of  mould,  into  a 
state  fit  to  become  food  for  plants.  The  second  action 
of  ammonia  is  this,  it  hastens  decay.  It  is  the  bel- 
lows, we  may  say,  kindling  the  slow  mouldering  fire. 
The  third  action  of  ammonia  is,  to  combine  with  any 
fi-ee  acids,  such  as  vinegar,  or  even  an  acid  formed  of 
mould  itself,  but  especially  with  aqua-fortis,  or  nitric 
acid,  which  is  always  produced  where  animal  or  vege- 
table matters  decay.  This  is  a  highly  important  fact. 
The  result  of  this  action,  the  production  of  ammonia 
and  aqua-fortis,  during  the  formation  of  mould,  is, 
that  a  kind  of  saltpetre  is  thereby  produced.  That  is, 
the  ammonia  and  aqua-fortis  unite,  and  form  a  salt, 
with  properties  similar  to  saltpetre.  But  we  want  the 
first  and  second  action  of  ammonia  to  occur,  before 
the  third  takes  place.  Consider  now,  reader,  whether 
a  more  beautiful  and  effectual  way  can  be  devised,  to 
.  hasten  decay,  and  render  mould  more  fit  for  nourish- 
ing plants,  than  this  which  nature  has  provided.  The 
ammonia  is  volatile.  It  remains,  not  like  potash  and 
.  soda,  where  it  is  put,  incapable  of  moving  unless  dis- 
solved by  water,  but  ammonia,  like  steam,  pervades 
every  part.  It  is  as  expansive  as  steam.  Heated  up 
by  the  slow  mouldering  fire  of  decay,  it  penetrates 
the  whole  mass  of  mould.    It  does  its  work  there. 


22  MANURES. 

Wliat  is  tliat  work  ?  It  has  already  been  told.  But, 
if  it  finds  no  acid  to  combine  with,  it  then  unites  with 
the  mould  itself.     It  is  absorbed  by  it. 

The  mould  holds  it  fast ;  it  stores  it  up  against  the 
time  when  growing  plants  may  need  it.  Now  it  is 
only  where  the  abundance  of  ammonia  produced  satis- 
fies these  actions  of  hastening  decay,  making  mould 
soluble,  and  filling  its  pores  without  combining  with 
it,  that  the  formation  of  saltpetre  takes  place.  So 
where  animal  matters,  which  are  the  great  source  of 
ammonia,  decay,  there  we  may  expect  all  these  ac- 
tions to  occur.  How  important,  then,  is  that  action 
of  mouldering,  which  produces  ammonia.  If,  reader, 
you  will  reflect  upon  the  consequences  of  this  action, 
you  will  at  once  see,  that  if  the  mould  is  in  too  small 
a  quantity  to  retain  the  ammonia,  it  may  escape.  If 
by  a  wasteful  exposure,  you  allow  your  mould  to  dissi- 
pate itself  in  air,  as  it  certainly  will,  you  not  only 
incur  the  loss  of  that  part  of  the  mould,  but  you  di- 
minish at  the  same  time  the  chance  of  keeping  the 
ammonia  which  has  been  formed.  No  doubt  all  cattle 
dung  exposed  to  air,  forms  more  ammonia  than  it  can 
retain.  Hence  the  necessity  and  the  season  of  forming 
composts  with  this  substance.  "  Keep  what  you  have 
got  and  catch  what  you  can,"  must  never  be  lost  sight 
of  in  manure.  The  third  action  of  mould  is  the  pro- 
duction of  heat.  Little  need  be  said  upon  this.  That 
a  slight  degree  of  heat  hastens  the  sprouting  of  seeds, 
you  well  know.  That  difierent  manures  produce 
different  degrees  of  heat,  that  some  are  hot,  some 
cold,  you  well  know,  and  adapt  your  seed  and  manure 
to  each  other.  The  degree  of  heat  depends  upon  the 
rapidity  with  which  decay  occurs.  And  this  is 
affected  by  the  quantity  of  ammonia  which  each  ma- 
nure can  afford.  The  great  point,  to  which  your 
attention  should  be  directed,  when  considering  the 
power  of  mouldering  to  produce  heat,  is,  that  it  shall 
not  go  so  far  as  to  burn  up  your  manure,  just  as  hay 
will  heat  and  take  fire. 


i  PRIZE   ESSAY.  28 


SECTION   V. 

OF  THE   ACTION  OF  THE  SALTS  OF  CATTLE  DUNG. 

Here  it  is  we  find  ourselves  thrown  on  a  sea  of 
opinions,  without  chart,  compass,  or  pilot,  if  we  trust 
to  the  conflicting  theories  which  have  been  set  up  for 
landmarks  and  lighthouses.  Let  us,  therefore,  reader, 
trust  to  ourselves,  aided  bj  the  little  chemistry  we 
have  learned  from  the  preceding  remarks  about  the 
composition  of  salts. 

I  have  endeavored  to  impress  on  your  memory, 
that  the  term  salt  is  very  comprehensive.  But  then, 
to  encourage  one,  it  is  also  to  be  remembered,  that 
salts  ase  compounds  of  alkalies,  earths,  and  metals 
with  acids.  Now  the  earths,  alkalies,  metals,  may  be 
united  to  each  of  the  known  acids,  (and  their  name  is 
legion, j)  yet  you  may  not,  by  this  change  of  acids, 
alter  tne  nature  of  the  earth,  alkali,  or  metal.  That 
always  remains  the  same ;  every  time  you  change  the 
acid,  you  alter  the  character  of  the  salt.  Thus  soda 
may  be  united  to  oil  of  vitriol  and  form  Glauber's 
salt,  or  to  aqua-fortis  and  form  South  American  salt- 
petre, or  to  muriatic  acid  and  form  common  table  salt. 
The  soda  is  called  the  base,  or  basis,  of  this  salt :  that 
is  always  soda;  you  do  not  change  its  character  by 
changing  the  acid.  To  give  another  example,  lime 
may  be  united  to  carbonic  acid  and  form  chalk,  or 
marble,  or  limestone,  or  it  may  be  united  to  oil  of 
vitriol  and  form  plaster  of  Paris,  or  to  phosphoric  acid 
and  form  bonedust.  Now,  in  each  case,  the  base  of 
the  salt,  that  is,  the  lime,  remains  unchanged;  but, 
changing  the  acid,  we  change  the  nature  of  the  salt, 
and  of  course  its  effects  will  be  different. 

Now  it  is  plain,  that  where  the  base  of  the  salt  re- 
mains the  same,  that  will  always  act  the  same,  but 


24  MANTTRES. 

» 

different  effects  will  be  produced  by  different  acids. 
Each  base  acts  always  one  way,  but  each  has  an  action 
similar  to  every  other.  Each  acid  acts  also  one  way, 
but  each  has  an  action  distinct  from  every  other  ;  im- 
press this  on  your  mind.  Reflect  upon  it  a  moment, 
and  you  will  perceive  that  salts  produce  different 
effects,  according  to  the  nature  of  their  acid.  Now 
this  may  be  illustrated  thus:  You  take  every  day, 
probably  with  your  every  meal,  common  salt ;  that 
is,  soda,  a  base,  united  to  muriatic  acid.  Your  di- 
gestion and  health  are  all  the  better  for  it.  You  give 
your  cattle  a  little  salt.  It  does  them  good.  Sup. 
pose  now  you  change  the  acid  of  that  salt,  leaving 
soda,  its  base,  in  the  same  quantity  you  daily  take. 
Instead  of  the  muriatic,  suppose  you  substitute  the 
nitric  acid,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  suppose  you 
use  saltpetre  from  Peru,  instead  of  common  salt.  You 
need  not  be  told,  that  you  would  poison  yourself  and 
your  cattle  by  so  doing.  You  can  drink,  I  dare  say 
you  have,  cream  of  tartar  punch.  You  feel  the  better 
for  it.  It  is  refreshing,  cooling,  opening.  Now  cream 
of  tartar  is  a  salt  of  potash ;  it  is  potash  and  tartaric 
acid.  You  have  a  fever.  Your  doctor  gives  you  a 
sweat  with  Silvius's  salt ;  that  is,  acetate  of  ammonia, 
a  salt  composed  of  that  and  vinegar ;  or  you  take, 
perhaps,  an  effervescing  draught,  formed  of  lemon 
juice  and  pearlashes.  AH  does  you  good.  But  sup- 
pose now  you  change  these  cooling,  vegetable  acids 
for  a  mineral  acid,  say  oil  of  vitriol.  You  may  not 
take  potash,  united  with  a  dose  of  oil  of  vitriol  equiva- 
lent to  the  tartaric  acid  in  the  cream  of  tartar,  with- 
out serious  injury.  So  is  it,  reader,  in  farming,  the 
acids  of  some  salts  are  not  only  harmless,  but  benefi- 
cial to  plants  ;  others  are  actual  poisons. 

In  the  first  case,  salts  help  to  nourish  plants,  as 
common  salt  helps  to  nourish  yourself;  in  other 
cases,  they  poison  plants,  just  as  they  would  impair 
your  constitution,  perhaps  kill  you.  But  it  is  to  be 
remembered,  as  in  our  own  case,  even  those  that 


A   PRIZE   ESSAY.  2lli 

poison,  in  a  small  dose  become  medicines,  so,  in 
plants,  a  small  dose  is  not  only  good,  but  truly  essen- 
tial. Now  if  we  divide  the  acids  into  two  classes,  the 
nourishers  and  the  poisoners,  such  will  also  be  the 
nature  of  the  salts.  When  we  therefore  attempt  such 
a  general  division  of  the  salts,  it  may  be  said  that  all 
the  acids  derived  from  the  vegetable  kingdom  are 
harmless ;  so  are  the  acids  called  mineral,  yet  whose 
components  are,  in  part,  like  those  of  the  vegetable 
acids ;  for  instance,  aqua-fortis,  or  nitric  acid.  But 
the  true  mineral  acids  are  poisonous ;  such  are  oil  of 
vitriol  and  spirits  of  salt.  One  thing  is  here  to  be 
borne  in  mind.  It  must  never  be  out  of  sight,  in  try- 
ing to  understand  how  salts  make  plants  grow.  You 
cast  your  salt  upon  the  ground ;  it  lies  there  ;  no  action 
occurs.  It  rains ;  your  salt  is  dissolved  and  disap- 
pears ;  it  seems  to  do  no  good.  Cast  your  salt  now 
among  sprouting  seeds  and  growing  roots ;  here  is  life. 
Well  now,  life  is  just  as  much  a  power  or  force  as 
electricity  is.  It  exerts  its  force,  no  matter  how ;  that 
is  quite  another  consideration.  I  say,  life  exerts  its 
force  here  to  separate  the  acid  and  the  base  of  a  salt, 
just  like  a  chemical  force.  We  can  and  do  separate 
the  components  of  salts  by  other  substances  ;  nay,  we 
do  it  by  electricity  alone. 

Now  this  is  all  which  it  is  necessary  for  you  to 
know,  and  to  understand  about  this  action  of  plants 
upon  salts;  it  does  disunite  the  components  of  the 
salts.  What  is  the  consequence  ?  The  alkali,  earth, 
and  metal  act  as  such,  the  same  as  if  no  acid  was 
present.  The  acid  also  acts  by  itself:  if  it  is  a  nour- 
isher,  it  helps  the  plant ;  if  it  is  a  poisoner,  it  hurts  it. 
[t  produces  either  a  healthy,  green  crop,  the  effect  of 
ilkali,  or  a  stunted,  yellow,  sickly  plant,  the  effect  of 
icids.  Now  neutralize  this  acid,  kill  it.  You  see 
/our  crops  start  into  luxuriance,  and  reap  where  you 
aavo  strewed.  So  much  for  illustration.  Let  us  now 
ipply  this  view  of  the  action  of  salts  to  those  con- 
:ained  in  cattle  dung.  In  the  first  place,  we  have 
2 


2S  MANURES. 

salts  of  potash,  of  soda,  of  lime ;  these  are  the  most 
abundant  and  active.  Then  we  have  salts  of  iron, 
manganese,  of  clay,  and  magnesia.  These  last,  exist- 
ing in  small  proportion,  may  be  thrown  out  of  the 
account,  bearing  in  mind,  however,  that,  though  we 
set  these  aside,  a  plant  does  not ;  they  enter  equally 
with  the  others  into  its  composition. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  salts  of  potash.  It  is  found 
combined  in  cattle  dung,  first,  with  a  vegetable  acid, 
the  acid  of  mould.  It  is  a  nourisher  of  plants. 
Secondly,  with  sulphuric  acid,  or  the  acid  of  sulphur, 
called  oil  of  vitriol.  This  is  one  of  the  poisoners, 
existing  only  in  small  proportion  in  cow  dung ;  it  min- 
isters to  the  wants  of  a  healthy  plant.  The  same  is 
true  of  the  common  salt,  or  the  muriate  of  soda  of 
dung.  If  it  existed  in  larger  quantities,  it  would 
poison  the  plants  to  which  it  might  be  applied. 

The  next  salts  are  those  of  lime,  phosphate  and 
sulphate  of  lime,  or  lime  united  to  sulphuric  and  phos- 
phoric acid,  forming  plaster  and  bonedust.  The  acids 
here,  if  abundant,  would  have  a  decided  bad  influence, 
they  are  poisoners ;  but  the  carbonic  acid,  in  the  car- 
bonate of  lime,  is  a  nourisher.  Now,  from  the  small 
quantity  in  which  these  all  exist  in  cattle  dung,  they 
act  only  beneficially.  But  if  you  apply  a  great  excess, 
even  of  cattle  dung,  you  may  be  sure  of  an  unfavor- 
able result.  It  will  be  produced  by  the  acids  of  those 
salts  which  we  have  called  poisonous. 

To  continue  our  remarks  on  the  acids  of  salts  of 
dung,  it  is  to  be  observed,  that  they  act  also  upon  the 
soil.  They  decompose  that.  That  is,  they  extract 
from  the  soil  alkalies,  or  other  substances,  like  those 
in  the  original  salt.  Now  though  applied,  as  they 
must  be,  in  very  small  doses  in  cattle  dung,  yet,  be- 
cause of  their  decomposing  action  on  soil,  they 
continually  renew  themselves,  they  last  till-  all  their 
acid  is  taken  up  to  supply  the  wants  of  growing 
plants. 

Let  lis  now,  reader,  if  jou  understand  how  the 


A  PRIZE   ESSAY.  27 

acids  of  the  salts  of  dung  act,  turn  to  the  bases  or  the 
alkalies  and  metals  and  earths  of  these  salts.  "What 
is  their  action  ?  What  purpose  do  they  serve  in  dung 
applied  as  manure  ?  First,  they  enter  into  and  form 
a  part  of  the  living  plant,  they  form  a  part  of  its 
necessary  food,  as  much  as  do  the  constituents  of 
mould.  Secondly,  when  these  alkalies  and  metallic 
bases  are  let  loose,  by  the  disuniting  power  of  a 
growing  plant,  then  they  act  as  alkalies  upon  mould. 
They  hasten  decay,  render  mould  more  soluble,  fit  it 
to  become  food  for  plants.  This  account  of  the  action, 
of  mould  and  salts  in  cattle  dung  may  appear  to  you, 
reader,  long  and  hard  to  be  understood.  I  do  request 
you  not  to  pass  it  over  on  that  account.  A  patient 
reading,  perhaps  some  may  require  two  or  more  read- 
ings, will  put  you  in  possession  of  all  you  need  know, 
to  understand  the  why  and  the  wherefore  of  the  action 
of  mould  and  salts  of  whatever  manure  may  be  used. 
What  has  been  said  of  the  action  of  mould  and  salts 
in  cattle  dung,  is  equally  applicable  to  all  manures. 
If,  then,  you  bend  your  bones  to  this  subject,  and 
master  it,  your  labor  of  understanding  the  action  of 
other  manures  will  be  reduced  to  the  mere  statement 
of  the  several  substances  which  they  may  contain. 
We  therefore  proceed  to  point  out  other  manures, 
[  somposed  of  the  droppings  of  animals. 


SECTION    VI. 

OF  NIGHT   SOIL,   HOG  MANURE,  HOESE  AND   SHEEP   DUNG. 

These  have  not  all  been  analyzed  with  the  same 
legree  of  care  and  as  often  as  has  cattle  dung ;  some, 
s,  for  instance,  night  soil,  have  been  examined  thor- 
■ughly  but  once.  Now  it  is  not  quite  fair  to  base 
•ur  reasoning  upon  these  single  analyses,  and  say  that 


"28  MANURES. 

this  or  that  manure  contains  this  or  that  salt  in  greater 
or  less  quantity  than  another. 

The  quantity  and  kind  of  salts  are  materially  af- 
fected by  several  circumstances,  which  will  be  con« 
sidered  in  the  next  section.  An  analysis,  made  when 
the  animal  is  fed  and  worked  one  way,  will  vary  from 
the  result  which  would  be  obtained  when  the  circum- 
stances are  varied.  It  is,  therefore,  quite  useless,  in 
the  general  consideration  of  the  composition  of  ma- 
nures, to  enter  upon  the  details  of  each.  General 
results,  general  expressions  of  facts,  are  sufficient  for 
understanding  the  nature  of  animal  droppings.  It  is 
well  ascertained,  however,  that  all  these  droppings  of 
various  animals  contain,  essentially  the  same  salts  as 
does  cattle  dung.  They  all  contain  portions  of  each 
of  the  substances  which  form  plants.  It  will  be 
enough  for  the  purpose  of  this  essay,  to  present  to 
your  eye,  reader,  a  table,  showing  the  proportions  of 
water,  mould,  and  salts,  which  the  dung  of  yourself 
and  your  stock  presents. 


Night  soil  and  hog  manure, 
Horse  dung. 
Sheep  dung,    . 

Water. 

75.3 
71.2 
67.9 

Mould. 

23.5 
27.0 
22.5 

Salts. 

1.20 
0.96 
3.06 

SECTION    VII.      . 

OF  THE    CIRCUMSTANCES   WHICH   AFFECT   THE    QUALirY    AND 
QUANTITY   OF    ANIMAL    DUNG-. 

That  we  may  reduce  to  some  general  principle, 
easily  understood  and  easily  remembered,  the  facts 
scattered  up  and  down,  among  the  mass  of  writen 
and  observers,  about  the  different  quality  of  manure 
afforded  by  different  animals,  or  the  same  animals  si 
different  times,  let  me,  reader,  request  your  compaoji 


A   PRIZE   ESSAY.  29 

while  I  walk  into  a  new  department  of  your  chemistry. 
You  may  not  understand  the  reasons  of  this  difference 
in  manures — why,  for  instance,  fattening  cattle  give 
stronger  manure  than  working  oxen — without  going  a 
little  into  the  mode  how  animals  are  nourished.  The 
whole  may  be  stated  in  plain  terms  thus :  All  food 
serves  two  purposes.  The  first  is  to  keep  up  the  ani- 
mal heat,  aad  this  part  of  food,  .disappears  in  breathing 
or  in  forming  fat ;  that  is,  after  serving  its  purpose  in. 
the  animal  body,  it  goes  off  in  the  breath  or  sweat,  or 
it  forms  fat.  It  is  so  essential  to  the  action  of  breath- 
ing, that  we  will  term  it  food  for  breathing,  or  the 
breathers.  The  second  purpose  answered  by  food  is, 
to  build  up,  sustain,  and  renew  the  waste  of  the  body. 

Now  all  this  is  done  from  the  blood.  To  form 
blood,  animals  must  be  supplied  with  its  materials 
ready  formed.  They  are  ready  formed  in  plants; 
and  animals  never  do  form  the  materials  for  making 
blood.  We  may,  therefore,  term  this  kind  of  food  the 
blood  formers.  We  have,  then,  two  classes  of  food ; 
the  breathers  and  the  fat  formers,  and  the  blood 
formers.  If  we  look  to  the  nature  of  these  different 
classes,  we  find  that  sugar,  starch,  and  gum  are 
breathers.  Now  there  are  three  principles  found  in 
plants,  exactly  and  identically  the  same  in  chemical 
composition  with  white  of  egg,  flesh,  and  curd  of 
milk.  Now  these  three  principles,  exactly  alike, 
whether  derived  from  animals  or  from  plants,  are  the 
only  blood  formers.  I  shall  not,  reader,  tax  your  at- 
tention further  upon  this  subject,  than  to  say  and  to 
beg  you  to  remember  these  important  facts :  First, 
all  food  for  breathing  and  forming  fat  contains  only 
these  three  elements,  oxygen,  hydrogen,  and  carbon. 
Secondly,  all  food  for  forming  flesh  and  blood,  in  ad- 
dition to  these,  contains  nitrogen. 

This  is  the  gist  of  the  whole  matter,  so  far  as  relates 
;o  manure.  Bear  in  mind,  as  you  go  on  with  me, 
'eader,  this  fact,  that  of  all  the  food  animals  tSke,  that 
ilone  which  can  form  flesh  and  blood  contains  nitro- 


Sd  MANURES. 

gen.  The  door  is  now  open  for  explaining  why  age, 
sex,  kind  of  employment,  difference  of  food,  difference 
of  animal,  can  and  do  produce  a  marked  difference  in 
the  value  of  different  manures.  And  first,  let  us  con- 
sider how  the  quantity  is  affected  ;  this  depends  on 
the  kind  of  food.  The  analysis  of  cattle  dung  which 
has  been  given  is  that  of  cows  fed  on  hay,  that  is, 
herd's  grass,  red  top,  &c.,  or  what  is  usually  termed 
English  hay,  potatoes,  and  water.  The  cattle  kept  up 
the  year  round;  an  animal,  so  treated,  consumed  in 
seven  days, 

Water, 611  lbs 

Potatoes,     ....  87    " 

Hay, 167    " 

During  this  time,  she  dropped  clear  dung  599  lbs., 
or  very  nearly  a  bushel  of  dung  a  day.  Every  atten- 
tion was  here  paid  to  accuracy  of  measurement  and 
weight.  The  annual  amount  of  dung  from  one  cow 
exceeds  by  this  account  that  which  is  usually  assigned. 
But,  as  it  is  a  matter  of  some  importance  for  the 
farmer  to  estimate  what  the  produce  of  his  stock  may 
be  in  duno;.  the  following  statement,  containing  the 
results  of  a  large  establishment,  will  probably  give 
that  average. 

At  this  establishment,  the  cows  were  kept  up  the 
year  round  for  their  dung.  It  was  collected  for  use 
free  from  litter,  and  measured  daily  into  large  tubs  of 
known  capacity.  The  average  number  of  cows  kept 
was  fifty-four  for  nine  and  a  half  years.  During  that 
time,  they  consumed  of  beets,  meal,  and  pumpkins, 
brewery  grains,  cornstalks,  turnips,  potatoes,  carrots, 
and  cabbages,  942,436  lbs.,  giving  an  average  of  green 
fodder,  for  each  cow  per  year,  1,837  lbs.  Average 
consumption  of  hay  for  each  cow  per  annum,  8,164 
lbs.  The  total  dung  for  nine  and  a  half  years  was 
120,52(T  bushels,  or  per  cow  per  annum,  235  bushels. 
This  gives  a  daily  consumption  of  green  food,  5  lbs 


A  PRIZE    ESSAY. 


81 


knd  22  lbs.  of  liay  per  cow,  and  two  and  a  half  pecks 
of  dung  per  day,  or  about  56  lbs.  per  cow. 

But  according  to  some  experiments,  made  to  deter- 
mine how  much  the  quality  of  the  food  affected  the 
quantity  of  dung,  it  appears  that  the  solid  and  fluid 
excrements,  partially  dried,  were,  compared  with  the 
food,  as  follows : — 


Cattle, 
lbs. 

Sheep 
lbs. 

Horses 
lbs. 

00  lbs.  of  rye  straw  gave  dung 

43 

44 

40 
42 

42 
45 

"         "     potatoes,     "         " 
"         "     mangel-wurtzel,  " 

14 
6 

13 

"         "      green  clover,        " 

n 

8|- 

"         "     oats,        "             " 

49 

61 

«         "     rye. 

53 

My  own  experiments  on  this  subject  gave  for  100 

lbs.  of  hay  and  potatoes  as  above,  estimating  both  as 

dry,  or  free  from  water  of  vegetation,  32.9  lbs.  dung, 

and  this  estimated  as  dry  is  reduced  to  5.6  lbs.,  or  26 

lbs.  of  dry  food  gave  14  lbs.  of  dry  dung.     But  as  a 

general  fact,  we  may  say,  that  well-cured  hay  and 

the  grains  give  one  half  of  their  weight  of  dung  and 

urine ;    potatoes,  roots,  and   green  grass,   about  one 

tenth.     It  will  be  easily  understood  why  the  quality 

«of  food  should  affect  the  quantity  of  dung.     The  more 

watery,  the  less  in  bulk  is  voided,  because  there  is 

tually  less  substance  taken.     And  as  the  animal  re- 

«[uires  this  to  form  his  flesh,  and  blood,  and  fat,  and  to 

:eep  up  his  breathing,  so  will  he  exhaust  more  com- 

letely  his  food.     More  going  to  support  him,  less  is 

■eturned  by  the  ordinary  channels.     So  when  much 

egetable  fibre  exists,  as  in  chopped  straw  and  hay, 

ihen,  as  it   goes   but   little   way  toward   supporting 

ireathing  or  forming  blood,  a  greater  bulk  is  rejected. 

grains,  on  the  contrary,  which  afford  much  of  all 

.hat  the  animal  requires,  less  is  extracted  and  more 


S2  MANURES. 

voided.    These  circumstances  are  intimately  connected 
with 


THE  QXTAIiITY  OF  THE  CUnS. 

It  is  affected,  first,  by  the  season ;  second,  by  tho 
age ;  third,  by  the  sex ;  fourth,  by  the  condition ;  fifth, 
by  the  mode  of  employment ;  sixth,  by  the  nature  of 
the  beast ;  seventh,  the  kind  of  food. 

1st.  The  season.  It  is,  because  digestion  is  worse  in 
summer  than  in  winter,  a  general  fact,  that  summer 
manure  is  best.  And  where  cattle  are  summer  soiled, 
it  is  said  the  manure  is  worth  double  that  from  stall- 
fed  winter  cattle.  I  do  not  think  much  is  to  be  attri- 
buted to  the  worse  digestion  in  summer ;  but  the  cause 
of  this  great  difference  in  value  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fact,  that  soiled  cattle  generally  get  a  large  proportion 
of  blood-forming  food. 

The  wear  and  tear  of  their  flesh  is  little,  and  hence, 
requiring  little  of  their  food  to  keep  up  their  flesh,  a 
greater  portion  goes  off  in  dung,  which  thus  becomes 
rich  in  ammonia.  The  green  plants,  rich  in  nitrogen, 
afford  abundance  for  milk,  which,  being  rich  in  all 
the  elements  of  cream,  should  afford  large  returns  of 
butter. 

2d.  Age.  From  the  fact,  that  young  and  growing 
animals  require  not  only  food  to  form  flesh  and  blood 
to  repair  the  incessant  waste  and  change  taking  place 
in  their  bodies,  as  in  older  animals,  but  also  a  further 
supply  to  increase  the  bulk  of  their  frame,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  their  food  will  be  more  completely  exhausted 
of  all  its  principles,  and  that  also  less  will  be  returned 
as  dung.  All  experience  confirms  this  reasoning,  and 
decides  that  the  manure  of  young  animals  is  ever  the 
weakest  and  poorest. 

3d.  The  sex.  This  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  of 
the  causes  which  affect  the  strength  of  dung.    Froin 


I 


A    PRIZE    ESSAY. 


the  remarks  which  have  been  already  made,  and 
which  I  trust,  reader,  are  now  fresh  in  your  memory, 
of  the  important  part  acted  by  nitrogen  in  dung,  it 
must  be  plain  why  sex  should  exercise  such  influence. 

Firstly,  in  all  food,  as  we  have  explained,  that  only 
which  contains  nitrogen  can  form  flesh  and  blood,  or 
substances  of  similar  constitution ;  that  is,  requiring  a 
larger  proportion  of  nitrogen,  as  milk.  Hence,  an 
animal  with  young,  that  is,  a  cow  before  calving,  re- 
quires not  only  materials  for  its  own  repair,  but  to 
build  up  and  perfect  its  young.  Hence  the  food  will 
be  most  completely  exhausted  of  its  nitrogen,  and 
consequently  the  dung  become  proportionably  weaker. 

Secondly,  the  young  having  been  formed,  then  milk 
is  required  for  its  sustenance.  Milk  contains  a  large 
proportion  of  nitrogenous  or  blood-forming  elements, 
and  so  the  cause  which  originally  made  the  dung 
weak,  continues  to  operate  during  all  the  time  the 
animal  is  in  milk.  Sex,  then,  it  is  evident,  affects 
materially  the  quality  of  the  dung. 

4th.  The  condition.  If  the  animal  is  in  good  condi- 
tion, and  full  grown,  it  requires  only  food  enough  to 
supply  materials  to  renew  its  waste. 

Hence  the  food,  supposing  that  always  in  sufficient 
quantity,  is  less  exhausted  of  its  elements,  than  when 
the  animal  is  in  poor  condition.  In  the  last  case,  not 
only  waste,  but  new  materials  must  be  supplied.  If 
the  animal  is  improving  in  fleshy  (and  here,  reader,  I 
would  have  you  bear  in  mind  the  distinction  between 
flesh  and  fat,)  if  the  animal  is  improving  in  flesh,  then 
the  manure  is  always  less  strong  than  when  he  is 
gaining  fat.  There  is  no  manure  so  strong  as  that  of 
fattening  animals.  An  animal  stall-fed,  kept  in  proper 
warmth,  requires  but  little  of  his  breathing  food  to 
keep  up  his  heat.  All  the  starch,  gum,  sugar,  &c.,  go 
to  form  fat.  Having  little  use  for  his  muscles  or  flesh, 
that  suffers  little  waste,  and  the  nitrogen,  which 
should  go  to  form  flesh,  is  voided  in  du.  .g.  If  it  is  a 
2* 


'84  MANURES. 

she,  no  milk  is  given  during  this  period,  for  a  cow,  in 
milk,  fats  not. 

The  dung,  then,  of  fiittening  animals  contains  more 
of  all  the  elements  of  food  for  plants,  than  at  any 
other  period,  and  is  peculiarly  rich  in  nitrogen.  I 
trust,  reader,  it  is  not  so  long  since  you  have  met  the 
•word  ammonia,  that  you  have  forgotten  that  its  source 
and  origin  are  due  to  this  nitrogen.  Now,  the  source 
of  this  nitrogen  is  in  the  food,  and  as,  during  fatten- 
ing, grain  is  supplied  for  its  starch,  &c.,  to  make  fat, 
and  very  little  waste  of  the  body  taking  place,  the 
extra  nitrogen  of  the  blood-forming  materials  of  grain 
is  nearly  all  voided  in  dung. 

5th.  The  mode  of  employment.  Your  working 
beasts  suffer  great  wear  and  tear  of  flesh  and  blood, 
bone  and  muscle,  thews  and  sinews.  Hence,  their 
daily  food  supplies  only  this  daily  waste ;  the  food  is 
very  thoroughly  exhausted,  and  of  course,  the  dung 
is  weak.  It  derives  its  chief  value  from  the  excre- 
tions of  those  parts  of  the  body  which  are  voided  as 
waste  materials  among  the  excrements.  There  is  a 
distinction  to  be  noted  here :  excretions  are  the  worn- 
out  flesh  and  blood  elements,  excrements  the  undi- 
gested and  unused  food ;  dung  includes  both  excre- 
tions and  excrements.  Now,  the  chief  value  of  the 
dung  of  working  cattle  depends  upon  the  excretions. 

6th.  The  nature  of  the  beast.  If  his  coat  is  wool, 
he  requires  more  sulphur  and  phosphorus,  the  natural 
yolk,  or  sweat  of  his  wool,  more  lime  and  ammonia 
than  does  the  hairy-coated  animal.  Hence,  sheep  pro- 
duce manure  less  rich  in  many  of  the  elements  of 
plants  than  cattle ;  but  as  at  the  same  time  it  contains 
a  larger  portion  of  nitrogen,  and  is  very  finely  chewed, 
it  runs  quicker  into  fermentation.  It  is  a  hotter  ma- 
nure, quick  to  eat,  quick  to  work,  and  is  soon  done. 

7th.  The  kind  of  food.  We  have  already  spoken 
of  this  as  affecting  the  quantity  of  dung.  Its  effects 
are  no  less  marked  on  its  quality.     Now,  all  that  tg* 


A   PRIZE   ESSAY.  35 

quires  to  be  said  on  tliis  sabject,  is  to  remind  yon, 
j-eader,  of  the  two  divisions  of  food,  tlie  fat  formers, 
and  the  flesh  and  blood  formers.  It  must  be  evident, 
that  the  more  of  this  last  the  food  contains,  that  is,  the 
more  nitrogenous  is  the  food,  the  richer  the  dung. 
T fence,  grains  of  all  sorts,  peas,  beans,  &c.,  will  always 
ive  a  richer  dung  than  fruits,  as  apples,  &c.  The 
more  nitrogenous  the  hay,  the  richer  the  dung, 
^[eadow  cat-tail  and  rye  grass  are  nearly  six  times 
ironger  in  ammonia  than  oat  straw.  Eed  clover  is 
wice  as  rich  in  nitrogen  as  herd's  grass  ;  wheat,  bar- 
ley, and  rye  straw,  green  carrots,  and  potatoes  con- 
tain only  about  one  third  to  one  fifth  the  ammonia  of 
herd's  grass,  and  turnips  only  about  one  sixth.  The 
quantity  of  ammonia  contained  in  these  different 
grasses  and  straws,  shows  at  once  the  effect  they  must 
have  in  the  compost  heap.  The  kind  of  litter  must 
have  no  small  effect  upon  the  value  of  manure.  And 
while  we  are  upon  this  subject,  it  may  not  be  out  of 
place  to  mention,  that  the  kind  of  a  green  crop,  turned 
in,  materially  affects  the  value  of  the  process.  While 
the  straws  of  the  grain-bearing  plants  afford,  for  every 
ton  of  green  crop  turned  in,  about  three  quarters  of  a 
pound  of  ammonia,  green  cornstalks  and  herd's  grass 
about  five  pounds  of  ammonia  per  ton ;  red  clover 
affords  about  seventeen  pounds  of  ammonia  per  ton.'^ 
The  very  great  value  of  clover  in  enriching  land  is 
thus  made  evident.  But  to  return  to  the  quality  of 
the  dung,  as  affected  by  the  food,  it  has  been  proved, 
that  animals  fattening  on  oil-cake  give  manure  in 
value  double  that  of  common  stock.  Here  abundance 
of  nitrogen  is  supplied  where  very  little  is  required, 
and  consequently  much  is  voided  in  dung.  The  point 
to  which  we  have  arrived  is  a  breathing  place.  The 
remarks  which  have  been  offered  upon  the  action  of 

*  This  is  the  relative,  not  the  absolute,  proportion  of  ammonia. 
The  analysis  of  Boussingault  gives  about  fifty,  and  one  hundred 
and  seventy  as  the  absolute  quantity. 


50  MANURES. 

salts,  have  prepared  the  way  for  our  entering  upon 
the  next  section — the  second  class  of  manures. 


SECTION    YIII. 

MAKUBES  CONSISTING   OF  SALTS. 

In  using  the  term  salts  here,  to  designate  a  class  of 
manures,  I  wish  to  distinguish  between  these  and 
mineral  manures,  as  they  are  usually  termed.  These 
manures  are  similar  in  kind  to  the  salts,  whose  action 
in  cow  dung  we  have  already  considered.  They  are 
truly  mineral  salts,  derived  from  the  mineral  king- 
dom, entering  into  and  forming  a  part  of  plants,  and 
from  this  source  introduced  into  the  dung  of  animals. 
Their  action,  whatever  be  their  name,  has  been  ex- 
plained. But  the  salts  composing  the  second  class  of 
manures  now  under  consideration,  are  not  of  mineral 
origin.  They  are  derived  from  the  animal  kingdom. 
The  source  from  which  they  are  formed  is  the  living 
process  of  the  animal  body.  They  are  animal  salts. 
Here,  then,  let  us  divide  the  second  class  of  manures 
into  animal  salts,  which  are  truly  manures,  both  their 
base  and  their  acid  acting  as  nourishers  of  plants,  and 
into  mineral  salts.  Here  again,  reader,  you  will  find 
that  the  few  facts  which  we  have  pointed  out,  re- 
lating to  the  food  and  nourishment  of  animals,  will 
help  us  on  our  way,  in  tracing  the  source  of  these  ani- 
mal salts. 

It  has  been  already  said,  that  the  food  of  animals  is 
divided  into  two  classes :  that  which  does,  and  that 
which  does  not  contain  nitrogen.     All  domestic  ani- 
mals eat  these  classes  together.     In  a  few  words,  let. 
us  trace  their  course  after  the  animal  has  digested 


A   PRIZE   ESSAY.  Sf 

them.  The  one  class  goes  to  form  fat,  or  to  support 
tlie  natural  heat  of  the  body,  and  passes  off  by  the 
skin  in  sweat,  or  in  moisture  of  the  breath,  and  all  its 
excess  or  undigested  part  goes  off  in  dung.  The  excess 
of  nitrogenous  food,  all  that  not  required  for  repairing 
the  daily  waste  of  the  body,  or  to  increase  its  growth, 
also  passes  off'  in  dung,  as  excrement.  This  is  a  small 
portion,  and  its  effects  on  the  strength  of  dung  have 
been  pointed  out.  But  the  wear  and  tear,  as  we  may 
call  it,  of  the  flesh  and  blood,  the  parts  which  are  daily 
and  constantly  thrown  out  of  the  body,  as  excretions, 
or  old  materials,  enter  the  circulation,  and  pass  out  of 
the  body  in  urine.  This  is  the  point  to  which  I  would 
call  your  attention.  The  undigested  food,  and  the 
excrements  not  containing  nitrogen,  go  off  in  dung. 
The  food  and  the  spent  parts  of  the  body,  containing 
nitrogen,  go  off  in  urine.  This  last,  too,  is  the  course 
of  most  alkaline  salts  taken  into  the  body.  They  pass 
off  in  urine.  Here,  then,  we  come  to  the  subject  quite 
prepared  to  understand  it.  The  urine  is  a  collection 
of  salts,  some  of  mineral,  others  of  animal  origin. 
But  that  which  gives  the  urine  its  peculiar  and  char- 
acteristic properties,  is  a  substance  formed  from  the 
nitrogenous  food,  and  termed  urea.  Now  you  need 
hardly  trouble  yourself  to  remember  this  new  name  ; 
all  I  want  you  to  understand  about  it  is,  that  when 
urine  is  exposed  to  air  it  rots,  and  this  peculiar  sub- 
stance is  changed  to  ammonia.  That  is  the  point  to 
be  remembered.  In  considering  urine,  therefore,  as 
a  manure,  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  point  out  further 
the  mode  of  its  action,  than  to  refer  that  of  every  an- 
imal to  its  salts  and  power  of  forming  ammonia.  The 
quantity  of  the  last  will  be  in  proportion  to  the  quan- 
tity of  urea.  There  are  other  salts  of  ammonia  in 
iirine,  and  also  mineral  salts.  These  affect  but  little 
'.he  value  of  urine  as  a  manure. 

It  is  the  urea,  essence  of  urine,  that  substance  which 
brms  ammonia  in  rotting  urine,  which  alone  makes 
:liis  liquid  more  valuable  than  dung.    Hence,  reader, 


38  MANURES. 

if  this  is  impressed  on  your  mind,  you  will  perceive 
that  the  chiefest  things  to  be  regarded  in  urine  are, 
first,  the  circumstances  which  afl'ect  the  quality  and 
quantity ;  second,  the  best  mode  of  promoting  a 
change  of  urine  to  ammonia  ;  third,  the  time  required 
for  the  process  ;  and  fourth,  the  best  mode  of  preserv- 
ing the  ammonia,  when  formed.  You  will  perceive, 
reader,  that  all  along,  I  have  endeavored  to  point  out 
the  principles  on  which  manures  act.  If  you  go  by 
general  principles,  then  for  a  plain  practical  farmer, 
like  yourself,  with  only  chemistry  enough  to  under- 
stand a  few  of  its  terms,  it  must  be  quite  a  thankless 
service,  to  point  out  to  you  in  detail  all  the  various 
things  contained  in  urine.  It  would  confuse  you  more 
than  the  names,  ay,  and  hard  ones  too,  which  are 
given  to  the  varieties  of  pears  and  apples.  All  you 
want  to  know  is  this.  Does  urine  contain,  as  solid  dung 
does,  water,  mould,  and  salts? 

It  does.  The  mould  is  so  small  a  part,  it  may  be 
left  out  of  view.  The  salts  are  like  those  in  the  solid 
dung,  mineral  salts,  and  then  we  have  the  peculiar 
principle  urea,  which,  for  all  practical  purposes,  may 
be  called  ammonia.  We  may  then,  with  this  division, 
present  in  a  table  the  composition  of  the  urine  of 
various  animals  at  one  glance  : — 


Water. 

Salts. 

Ammonia. 

Cattle  urine, 

per  100  lbs., 

92.62 

8.38 

4.00 

Horse     " 

((         (( 

94.00 

5.03 

0.70 

Sheep     " 

U                 (( 

96.00 

1.20 

2.80 

Hog        " 

il          (( 

92.60 

1.76 

5.64 

Human  " 

((          (( 

95.75 

1.88 

2.36 

Kow  cast  your  eye  carefully  over  this  table :  the 
figures  at  once  tell  you  the  value  of  these  diflferem 
liquids.  The  last  column  gives  the  true  value.  Th( 
other  salts  vary  much  in  quantity,  and  this  affects  th 
quality.  The  actual  amount  of  ammonia  in  humai 
urine  and  cattle  duog  is  about  the  same ;  yet  iu  actua 


I 


A  PRIZE  ESSAY.  89 

J)ractlce  it  is  found  the  effects  of  urine  are  nearly- 
double  those  of  dung.  Look  now  for  the  reason  of 
this.  In  the  first  place,  the  principle  which  gives  am- 
monia in  urine  runs  at  once  by  putrefaction  into  that 
State.  It  gives  nothing  else ;  whereas  in  dung  the 
ammonia  arises  from  a  slower  decay,  and  the  principle 
which  here  affords  ammonia  may,  and  without  doubt 
does,  form  other  products.  Hence,  we  have  a  quick 
action  with  the  liquid,  a  slower  one  with  the  solid. 
A  second  cause  of  the  better  effects  of  the  liquid  is, 
that  it  contains,  besides  its  ammonia,  a  far  greater 
amount  of  salts,  and  these  give  a  more  permanent 
effect.  The  amount  of  salts  in  human,  cow,  and  horse 
dung  is  about  one  pound  in  every  hundred;  while 
the  urine  of  the  same  animals  contains  nearly  six 
pounds  in  every  hundred.  A  third  cause  of  the 
greater  fertilizing  action  is  found  in  the  peculiar  char- 
acter of  some  of  these  salts,  which  are  composed  of 
soda,  potash,  lime,  &c.,  united  to  an  acid  formed  from 
urea,  in  the  animal  body.  This  acid  is  like  the  acid 
of  saltpetre  ;  it  is  a  nourisher  of  plants,  as  much  so  as 
is  carbonic  acid. 


SECTION    IX. 

OF  THE  CAUSES  WHICH  MAKE  URINE  BETTER  OR  WORSE,  MORE 
OR  LESS,  AND  THE  MODES  OF  PRESERVING  rT. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  same  causes  which 
we  have  pointed  out  as  affecting  the  value  of  dung, 
affect  also  the  urine. 

We  have  already  alluded  (p.  38)  to  the  four  chief 
circumstances  to  be  regarded  in  urine.  And  first,  of 
its  composition.  It  will  be  affected  by  the  age,  sex, 
food,  and  difference  of  animal.     The  process  of  form? 


40  MANURES. 

ing  urine  is  the  same  in  man  and  animals.  Now  if 
we  reason  here,  as  we  surely  may,  from  analogy,  then 
the  effect  of  age  and  sex  upon  the  quantity  of  the 
essence  of  urine  or  urea,  will  appear  from  the  results 
of  one  hundred  and  twenty  analyses  of  urine. 

In  24  hours  there  are  disch'd  by  men,  432  grs.  of  urea. 
By  women,        .         .         .       '.         .  293    "         " 
By  old  men,  from  76  to  80  yrs.  of  age,  122    "         " 
By  children,  8  years  of  age,       .        .  208    "         " 
By  children,  4  j'cars  of  age,       .         .     70   "         " 

It  will  be  recollected,  that  each  grain  of  urea  is 
equal  to  a  grain  of  carbonate  of  ammonia  of  the  shops, 
so  that  a  healthy  man  discharges  daily  about  an  ounce 
of  this  salt.  If,  then,  other  animals  are  affected  by 
age  and  sex,  as  is  the  human  species,  then  we  may 
say  that  bulls  and  oxen  give  a  better  urine  than  cows, 
steers  better  than  calves,  and  a  venerable  old  cow 
gives  as  much  of  the  essence  of  urine  as  two  calves. 

Food  affects  the  quantity  of  water,  and  that  acting 
merely  to  dilute  the  urine,  renders  it  weaker  in  salts 
for  a  given  amount,  though  perhaps  not  the  daily 
amount  of  salts.  Supposing  the  animal  well  fed,  so 
as  to  keep  up  the  wear  and  tear  of  his  blood  and  flesh, 
then  as  the  urine  derives  its  chief  value  from  the  worn- 
out  materials  of  the  body,  the  actual  amount  of  urea 
daily  discharged  may  be  the  same,  though  the  amount 
of  the  urine  may  vary  considerably.  We  may  in- 
crease the  amount  of  salts  and  acids  by  particular 
food,  but  this  can  never  be  continued  long  enough  to 
change  materially  the  character  of  urine  as  a  manure. 

Difference  of  animal  has  also  a  great  effect  on  the 
quality  of  urine.  The  more  active,  the  greater  the 
wear  and  tear  of  the  flesh,  the  better  the  urine  in 
working  animals.  Where  the  animal  is  stall-fed, 
there,  no  doubt,  the  urine  is  still  richer,  and  the  urine 
of  fattening  animals  is  still  more  valuable.  Hence,  of 
all  animals,  commend  me  to  swine,  as  jnanufkcturers 


A   PRIZE   ESSAY.  41 

of  ammonia.  Cast  your  eye  on  the  table  (page  38)  of 
tlie  amount  of  urea  or  ammonia  furnished  by  various 
animals.  No  one  exceeds  the  hog.  He  seems  spe- 
cially formed  by  nature  for  this  office.  He  eats  every- 
thing. His  habits  require  very  little  of  that  class  of 
food  which  forms  flesh  and  blood.  He  is  a  fat  former, 
a  magazine  of  lard,  a  real  oil  butt,  and  demands,  there- 
fore, the  food  essential  to  form  fat  and  keep  up  his 
heat.  He  returns,  of  course,  having  little  lean  meat 
to  form,  (nobody  would  praise  him  for  that,)  having 
little  flesh  to  form  to  increase  his  size,  he  returns 
quickly  the  waste  his  body  suifers  as  urea,  which  be- 
comes ammonia.  But  it  is  only  the  still,  and  quiet, 
and  penned  animal,  which  gives  this  valuable  product. 
If  we  would  cause  him  simply  to  produce  the  greatest 
amount  of  his  manufactory,  without  taking  into  ac- 
count his  labor  in  shovelling  over  the  compost  heap, 
perhaps  no  better  rule  can  be  given  than  the  Shaker 
practice  of  feeding  with  lettuce  leaves.  Having  little 
brains  to  replenish  or  build  up,  and  not  quick  in  his 
nerves,  (for  be  it  known  to  you,  reader,  the  opium  of 
lettuce  leaves  is  supposed  to  contribute  mainly  to  the 
formation  of  brain  and  nerves,)  the  opium-eating  hog 
will  return  a  vast  amount  of  the  nitrogen  of  his  let- 
tuce, in  the  shape  of  ammonia.  If  now  you  add  to  the 
facts,  common  to  the  nourishment  of  swine,  the  action 
of  ammonia  on  mould,  as  it  has  been  explained,  you 
will  see  that  he  who  neglects  to  fill  his  yards  with 
mould,  and  swine  to  convert  it,  overlooks  one  of  the 
cheapest,  most  effectual,  and  certain  modes  of  forming 
manure,  which  practice  and  theory  unite  in  pronounc- 
ing the  surest  element  of  the  farmer's  success.  Not 
only  is  the  quality  of  urine  affected  by  age,  sex,  food, 
difference  of  animal,  but  the  season  also  exerts  an  influ- 
ence upon  this  liquid.  The  urine  of  cattle  often  con- 
tains ammonia  ready  formed  in  summer,  but  never  in 
winter.  In  cold  weather,  the  amount  of  ammonia,  or 
rather  the  principle  affording  it,  is  less  ;  often  it  is  not 
one  half  in  winter  what  it  is  in  summer.     This  cer» 


as  MANURES. 

tainly  is  a  misfortune  to  the  farmer,  who  generally 
keeps  his  cattle  up  only  in  winter;  but  then  it  is  an 
argument  also  for  the  practice  of  summer  soiling. 

Secondly,  with  respect  to  the  circumstances  neces- 
sary to  change  urea  to  ammonia ;  or,  in  short  words, 
to  fully  ripen  urine,  or  to  make  it  a  fit  manure.  These 
also  depend  upon  the  season,  in  part.  It  is  to  be  re- 
membered, reader,  that  this  rotting  of  urine  is  only 
fermentation.  It  takes  place,  because  there  is  a  prin- 
ciple in  urine  which  brings  on  fermentation,  just  as  it 
does  in  new  cider.  Now  if  it  is  by  fermentation  that 
urine  rots,  it  will  take  place,  as  all  fermentation  does, 
best  at  a  moderate  temperature.  The  cold  of  winter 
will  prevent  it.  Hence  your  winter  manure  must  be 
allowed  time,  as  the  heat  of  spring  comes  on,  to  fer- 
ment, that  the  urine  may  be  changed  to  ammonia ; 
and  every  means  must  be  taken  to  prevent  the  heat 
rising  beyond,  in  the  manure  heap,  or  falling  below  a 
moderate  temperate  warmth.  These  are  the  circum- 
stances which  chiefly  promote  the  change  from  urea 
to  ammonia. 

Thirdly,  in  regard  to  the  time  in  which  this  change 
will  take  place,  it  will  require  at  least  one  month; 
and  six  weeks  are  better.  If  urine  be  allowed  to  rot 
for  a  month,  it  fully  doubles  its  quantity  of  ammonia. 
In  fact,  it  Avould  have  contained  more  than  doubly  the 
ammonia  of  fresh  urine,  had  not  a  portion  escaped. 

This  brings  us  to  our  fourth  point,  the  best  mode  of 
preventing  the  flying  off  of  the  ammonia  when  this 
change  has  taken  place.  Much  has  been  said  about 
tanks,  and  vats,  and  urine  pits,  and  many  plans  de- 
vised for  preventing  the  escape  of  volatile  ammonia. 
But  when  once  the  action  of  ammonia  upon  mould  is 
understood,  as  we  have  already  pointed  it  out,  I  am 
persuaded,  reader,  that  these  tanks,  and  vats,  and 
urine  carts  will  appear  to  you  not  only  expensive  and 
cumbersome,  but  useless.  Your  first  point  is,  to  save 
your  ammonia ;  your  second  is  never  to  use  urine  in 
its  caustic  or  burning  state.     If  you  do,  you  will  as 


A  PRIZE   ESSAY.  4S 

assuredly  burn  your  crop,  as  the  puddle  formed  by  a 
cow  burns  the  grass  upon  which  she  empties  her 
watering  pot.  Here  the  urine,  forming  caustic  am- 
monia, acts  as  would  caustic  potash,  or  a  lump  of  stone 
lime,  left  to  slack  upon  the  grass.  You  want  to 
change  this  burning  or  caustic  ammonia  into  mild  am- 
monia, or  to  combine  it  with  some  substance  which 
has  not  only  that  effect,  but  also  keeps  it  from  flying 
away.  Unless  you  understand,  then,  the  principles 
of  these  actions,  and  apply  them  too,  your  labor  is  all 
vanity,  when  you  attempt  to  save  your  own  or  your 
cattle's  urine. 

These  principles  are  in  number,  two.  First,  the 
principle  which  changes  caustic  to  mild  ammonia  is 
carbonic  acid,  derived  from  air,  or  decomposing  mould. 
Second,  the  principles  which  render  ammonia  less 
volatile,  or  wholly  fixed,  are  certain  acids,  formed  in 
mould,  as  sour  mould,  or  certain  salts  which  give  up 
their  acid  to  the  ammonia.  Plaster  of  Paris  does  this, 
by  changing  its  lime  for  ammonia.  Now  let  us  go 
into  the  reason  of  this  a  little,  and  see  if  we  can  un- 
derstand it.  Very  slowly,  and  supposing  moisture 
present,  the  oil  of  vitriol  of  the  plaster  quits  its  lime, 
and  unites  to  the  ammonia,  and  so  changes  a  volatile 
into  a  fixed  salt.  Now  this  is  a  change  which  has 
been  of  late  much  insisted  on,  and  the  practice  recom- 
mended, of  strewing  the  stable  and  barn  cellars,  and 
even  the  privies,  with  plaster,  to  save  the  ammonia, 
which  escapes  in  these  places.  But  it  is  doubtful 
whether  the  saving  is  as  great  as  is  usually  supposed, 
for  the  ammonia  arising  from  the  urine  is  caustic,  it 
flies  off  as  caustic  ammonia,  that  has  no  effect  upon 
plaster.  To  produce  this  mutual  effect  of  ammonia 
and  plaster,  the  caustic  ammonia  must  previously  have 
been  made  mild.  However,  this  plan  is  applicable 
only  on  a  small  scale.  Copperas,  alum,  common  salt, 
potashes,  and  wood  ashes,  all  act  to  fix  the  volatile 
ammonia,  and  have  all  been  recommended  for  this 
purpose.     But  it  is  easily  seen,  that,  in  employing 


4^  MANURES. 

some  of  these  substances,  is  to  buy  ammonia  almost  at 
apothecary's  price.  These  practices  will  be  followed, 
therefore,  only  by  those  who  place  the  crop  and  its 
value  upon  ammonia.  This  is  a  limited  and  narrow 
view.  The  true  and  farmer-like,  as  well  as  the  most 
scientific  and  natural  mode  of  preserving  the  ammonia 
of  urine,  is  to  fill  your  yards  and  barn  cellars  with 
ptenty  of  mould ;  by  which  I  mean  truly  decayed  and 
decaying  vegetable  matter,  as  well  as  loam.  There  is 
no  mode  more  efiectual,  no  mode  more  economical. 
Consider  now  for  a  moment,  how  mould  formed  and 
forming,  and  ammonia  act.  Have  I  not  said,  again^ 
and  again,  that  ammonia  hastens  decay  ?  that  it 
makes  mould  more  easily  dissolved  ?  and  cooks  the 
food  of  plants  ?  That  action  having  occurred  during 
its  progress,  acids  were  formed.  The  ammonia  unites, 
with  them,  loses  its  burning  properties,  and  becomes 
fixed.  The  acids  having  been  satisfied,  the  ammonia 
is  actually  imbibed  and  retained  by  mould. 

It  does  not  drink  it  in  like  a  sponge,  but  the  mould 
forms  a  peculiar  chemical  compound  with  ammonia. 
This  peculiar  compound,  while  it  does  not  render  the 
mould  an  easily-dissolved  matter,  yet  holds  ammonia 
by  so  feeble  a  force,  that  it  easily  yields  to  the  power 
of  growing  plants.  It  gives  up  the  stored  ammonia 
at  the  place  where,  and  the  time  when,  it  is  most 
wanted.  If  you  remember  these  actions  of  mould  and 
ammonia,  it  will  be  as  plain  as  day,  that  what  we 
have  said  of  the  inexpediency  and  expense  of  vats, 
and  tanks,  and  urine  carts,  must  not  only  be  true,  but- 
is  confirmed  by  the  experience  of  a  host  of  hard- 
working, thinking,  practical  men.  In  connection  with, 
urine,  the  dung  of  birds,  for  instance,  domestic  fowls 
of  all  kinds,  and  pigeons,  may  be  here  mentioned. 
These  animals  discharge  their  solids,  and  what  we  may 
term  their  liquids,  together.  Their  urea  comes  out 
combined  with,  or  forming  part  of  their  dung.  Now 
reflecting  a  moment  on  the  nature  of  their  food, 
strongly  nitrogenous,  being  seeds,  grains,  &c.,  or  am-. 


A   PRIZE   ESSAY.  45 

jnals,  bugs,  grasshoppers,  &c.,  we  can  understand  why 
their  droppings  are  peculiarly  rich  in  ammonia  and 
salts.  The  strongest  of  all  manures  is  found  in  the 
droppings  of  the  poultry  yard. 

But  since  these  form  but  a  small  portion  of  the 
farmer's  stock,  and  are  never  regarded  as  a  principal 
source  of  manure,  their  further  consideration  may  be 
omitted.  It  may  perhaps  be  here  added,  that  as  from 
their  nature  bird  droppings  run  quickly  into  fermenta- 
tion, with  warmth  and  moisture,  so  they  act  quickly, 
and  are  quickly  done.  They  are  more  allied  to  sheep 
dung  than  to  other  manures.  Their  mould  not  being 
great,  droppings  of  poultry  require  to  be  mixed  with 
decayed  vegetable  matter,  or  loam.  To  this  class  be- 
longs the  manure  brought  from  the  Pacific  Ocean,  un- 
der the  name  of  guano,  a  Spanish  word  for  excrement. 
New-England  farmers  can  find  cheaper  sources  of 
salts,  to  which  the  main  value  of  guano  is  owing,  and 
therefore,  reader,  we  shall  detain  you  no  longer  on 
this  point. 


SECTION   X. 

MINERAL  SALTS,  OR  MANURES. 

Having  thus  considered  the  salts  derived  »om  the 
animal,  let  us  now  proceed  to  those  derived  from  the 
mineral  kingdom.  Among  these,  we  shall  find  some 
whose  action  is  similar  to  that  of  the  animal  salts ; 
:hat  is,  they  are  true  nourishers  of  plants. 

They  afford,  by  the  action  of  the  growing  plant, 
:he  same  elements  as  the  animal  salts.  Of  this  nature 
5  saltpetre.  Now,  reader,  I  want  you  to  understand 
Dj  saltpetre,  not  only  that  well-known  substance,  but 
ilso  that  which  has  lately  been  much  used  in  farming, 
South  American  saltpetre.    This  differs  from  common 


UK  MANUBES. 

saltpetre,  by  changing  its  potasli  for  soda.  One  step 
more.  I  want  you  to  understand  by  saltpetre,  not  one 
salt,  but,  in  farming,  a  class  of  salts ;  that  is,  a  num- 
ber, having  the  same  acid,  which  may  be  combined 
with  several  different  bases  which  all  act  one  way. 
Saltpetre  being  a  salt,  of  course  must  be  composed  of 
an  acid  and  a  base.  The  acid  is  always  aqua-fortis,  or 
nitric  acid.  The  base  may  be  potash,  or  soda,  or  lime, 
or  ammonia.  These  all  may  be  called  saltpetre.  In 
forming  saltpetre,  it  is  generally  that  variety  which 
contains  lime  and  aqua-fortis  which  is  procured.  So 
far  as  we  understand  the  action  of  salts,  and  this  has 
been  fully  explained,  the  action  of  the  varieties  of 
saltpetre  is  the  same  ;  and  were  it  not  for  the  peculiar 
nature  of  the  aqua-fortis,  or  acid  of  saltpetre,  the  ex- 
planation of  the  action  of  this  salt  might  be  referred 
to  the  general  laws  above  set  forth.  But  the  acid  of 
saltpetre  is  composed  of  volatile  ingredients.  It  is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  compound  of  the  com- 
mon air  we  breathe.  Surprising  as  it  may  seem, 
reader,  yet  it  is  not  the  less  true,  the  common  air  is  a 
mixture  of  oxygen  and  nitrogen.  What  a  bland  and 
harmless,  yea,  what  a  healthful  blessing  is  air,  not 
only  to  us,  but  to  plants  !  It  is  a  mere  mixture,  not  a 
chemical  compound,  a  mere  mixture.  In  every  hun- 
dred parts,  eighty  of  nitrogen,  twenty  of  oxygen.  Yet 
if  you  compel,  as  natural  operations  are  continually 
compelhn''  the  air  to  unite  chemically,  so  that  four- 
teen par  ;  of  nitrogen  shall  unite  to  forty  parts  of 
oxyger'  you  will  form  aqua-fortis.  Now,  I  do  not 
mean  lo  trouble  your  head  further  with  the  chemistry 
of  saltpetre,  than  merely  to  say,  that  having  thus 
shown  you  the  composition  and  origin  of  the  acid  of 
all  kinds  of  saltpetre,  you  will  readily  see,  that  a  sub- 
stance whioh  affords  such  an  abundance  of  nitrogen 
cannot  but  be  beneficial  to  plants.  This  nitrogen 
may,  and  probably  does,  form  some  portion  of  ammo- 
nia in  the  soil.  It  may  enter  as  nitrogen  into  the 
plants,  dissolved  in  water,  as  a  very  weak  aqua-fortia 


A   PRIZE   ESSAY.  47 

We  have  said  so  mucli  upon  the  action  of  ammonia 
and  nitrogen,  that  you  will  perceive  how  important  a 
part  nitre  is  likely  to  play  in  manure.  Not  only  does 
the  nitrogen  act  here,  but  the  oxygen,  the  other  com- 
ponent of  the  acid,  also  acts.  It  acts  upon  the  mould 
as  air  itself  would.  Besides,  the  mould  of  soil  and 
manure  imbibes  and  condenses  this  oxygen  in  its 
pores,  and  consequently  heats  a  little ;  so  that  saltpe- 
tre, whether  added  as  such  to  soil,  or  formed  in  ma- 
nure, as  it  is  always,  helps  to  warm  a  little  the  soil, 
like  fermenting  manure.  So  far  as  these  effects  are 
desirable  they  may  be  expected  from  the  use  of  salt- 
petre. But  this,  reader,  if  you  buy  your  saltpetre,  is 
pi-QCuring  a  small  effect  at  a  great  price.  The  action 
of  the  alkali  of  saltpetre  is  not  different  from  alkali  in 
other  shapes,  and  therefore  if  you  have  money  to  lay 
out  for  salts,  let  me  advise  you,  reader,  to  spend  it 
rather  for  ashes  than  for  saltpetre. 


SECTION   XI. 

or  ARTIFICIAL   NITRE   BEDS. 

But  there  is  a  fashion  in  manures  as  well  as  in  other 
things,  and  saltpetre  is  now  so  fashionable  that  you 
may  be  inclined  to  use  it.  Be  it  so.  I  will  show  you, 
reader,  how  to  make  it  for  yourself,  and  at  the  same 
time  form  a  large  pile  of  capital  mould.  But  as  you 
have  begun  to  inquire  a  little  into  the  reason  of  things, 
let  us  go  a  little  into  the  reasons  why  the  earth  under 
all  barns  where  cattle  are  kept,  why  the  plaster  of  old 
houses  and  cellar  walls,  always  afford  saltpetre.  You 
well  know  that  this  is  the  case,  and  why  ?  We  have 
already  told  you,  that  the  acid  of  saltpetre,  that  is,  the 
aqua-fortis,  is  formed  of  the  air  we  breathe.    Now 


48  MANURES. 

alkalies  and  porous  bodies  compel  tlie  constituents  of 
air,  under  certain  circumstances,  to  unite  and  form 
aqua-fortis,  and  this  immediately  unites  to  the  alkali, 
and  forms  saltpetre.  The  best  alkali  to  compel  this 
union,  is  ammonia.  Hence,  where  plenty  of  animal 
matter  is  fermenting,  or  rotting,  or  where  plenty  of 
urine  is,  there,  porous  bodies  being  present,  saltpetre 
•will  be  formed.  Now  this  is  enough  for  you,  to  un- 
derstand the  principle  upon  which  I  propose  to  you  tc 
form  an  artificial  nitre  bed  for  your  own  use.  It  has 
been  found  that  the  manure  of  twenty -five  cows,  asses, 
and  mules,  in  layers  of  about  four  inches  thick,  with 
layers  of  the  same  thickness  of  chalky  soil,  first  one 
and  then  the  other,  and  now  and  then  damped  with 
the  urine  of  the  stable,  produces  from  1,000  to  1,200 
lbs.  of  saltpetre  in  four  years. 

The  heap  is  formed  under  cover,  and  occasionally 
shovelled  over.  At  the  end  of  two  years,  it  is  a  mass 
of  rich  mould.  It  is  left  two  years  longer,  with  an 
occasional  turning  over,  but  it  is  not  wet  with  urine 
for  the  last  few  months.  The  dung  the  farmer  has 
always ;  he  wants  the  porous  chalky  body.  This  may 
be  furnished  by  spent  ashes,  mixed  up  with  its  bulk 
of  loam.  Hence  the  following  rule  may  be  given  :- 
One  cord  of  clear  cow  dung,  one  cord  of  spent  ashes, 
one  cord  of  loam  or  swamp  muck.  Mix  the  ashes  and 
the  swamp  muck  well,  and  having  hard  rammed  the 
barn  cellar  floor,  or  that  under  a  shed,  lay  a  bed  upoD 
it  four  inches  thick,  of  these  mixed  materials ;  then  a 
layer  of  dung,  three  or  four  inches  thick,  and  so  on, 
till  the  pile  is  two  or  three  feet  high,  topping  off  witb 
loam.  Wet  it  occasionally  with  virine,  keeping  it 
alwa3's  about  as  moist  as  garden  mould.  Shovel  ovei 
once  a  fortnight  for  two  years.  The  pile  now  contains 
about  fifty  pounds  of  several  varieties  of  saltpetre,  and 
mixed  throughout  with  nearly  three  cords  of  excellent 
manure.  It  may,  therefore,  be  now  used,  according, 
to  the  farmer's  judgment.  By  thoughtful  manage- 
ment, he  may,  after  the  firrst-  two  years,  annually  cplr 


A    PRIZE    ESSAY.  49 

lect  as  many  fifty  pounds  as  he  employs  cords  of  cow- 
dung.  But,  however  prepared,  nitre  affords,  by  its 
elements,  nourishment  to  plants.  All  its  parts  act. 
Its  alkali  acts,  and  its  acid  acts. 


SECTION    XII. 

ASHES. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  salts,  whatever  be  their  name 
or  nature,  which  are  likely  to  be  of  any  service  to 
the  farmer,  are  those  only  which  either  enter  into  and 
form  part  of  the  j)lants,  or  which,  by  the  action  of 
their  acid  or  base,  act  on  the  earthy  parts  of  soil,  or 
apon  the  mould.  Salts  either  poison  or  nourish 
plants.  The  first,  like  the  medicines  we  take,  are 
50od  in  small  doses ;  the  second  can  hardly  injure, 
iven  by  their  excess.  If  we  recur  to  the  principle, 
,vith  which  we  set  out  early  in  this  essay,  that  the 
ishes  of  plants  contain  all  their  salts,  then,  rightly  to 
enow  what  salts  are  likely  to  produce  good  effects  as 
nanure,  we  should  first  study  the  composition  of 
ishes.  AVe  have,  in  ashes,  a  great  variety  of  sub- 
itances.  They  come  from  the  soil.  They  form  a 
)art  of  plants.  The  dead  plant  returns  them  again  to 
,heir  mother  earth,  or  we,  losing  the  volatile  parts  of 
I  plant,  its  mould  and  ammonia,  by  burning,  collect 
ts  salts  as  ashes.  Let  us  see  what  these  salts  are  made 
)f.  In  the  first  place,  you  know,  all  salts  are  com- 
posed of  an  acid  and  a  base. 

The  bases  are,  The  acids  are, 

:>otash  and  soda,      J  Carbonic,    or   carbon   united   to 

'       (      oxygen, 
-lime,  Phosphoric,  or  phosphorus,  do. 


50  ilANURES. 

,,  .  (  Salphuric,  or  sulphur  united  to 

Magnesia,  |      J^^^^^[ 

^-,  (  Muriatic,  essentially  composed  of 

<^1^J'  I     chloriie. 

Iron, 

Manganese, 

Silex,  or  the  earth  of  flints. 

Now  if  we  throw  out  the  carbonic  acid,  which  has 
been  formed  in  burning,  we  have  left  in  ashes  three 
acids,  which  are  united  with  the  bases,  and  may  form 
the  following  salts  in  plants,  namely : — Glauber's  salt, 
Epsom  salt,  common  table  salt,  bonedust,  a  salt  of 
lime,  and  what  we  may  term  a  bonedust  salt  of  iroUj 
or  phosphate  of  iron,  plaster  of  Paris,  or  gypsum, 
copperas,  alum,  and  some  other  «alts,  which  need  not 
be  enumerated.  Our  list  comprises  the  principal,  and 
those  most  likely  to  be  used  in  farming.  Well,  now, 
the  lesson  to  be  drawn  from  this  composition  of  ashes 
is  this,  that  there  is  scarcely  any  salt  occurring  in 
commerce,  which  may  not  be  used  in  agriculture, 
instead  of  those  found  in  ashes.  In  fact,  almost  all 
salts  which  occur  in  a  large  way,  as  refuse  materials 
from  manufactures  or  other  sources,  have  been  used, 
and  all  with  greater  or  less  success,  as  manures.  And 
if  you  cast  your  eye  over  the  acids  and  bases  of  com- 
mon ashes,  this  seems  quite  reasonable.  It  is  not 
expected  that  a  plain  farmer,  possessing  little  or  nc 
chemical  knowledge,  should  be  able  to  tell  before- 
hand what  the  eiiect  of  a  salt  would  be,  applied  tc 
his  land  ;  but  if  he  imderstands  what  the  compositioi] 
of  ashes  is,  he  may  be  sure  that  in  any  quantity  in 
which  the  salt  is  likely  to  occur,  it  cannot  be  injurious, 
provided  it  is  mixed  up  with  plenty  of  mould,  and  a 
little  ashes,  or  alkali,  which  will  kill  or  neutralize  any 
excess  of  the  poisonous  acid. 

In  ashes,  we  have  one  part  which  may  be  leached 
oiTt,  and  a  part  which  remains  after  leaching,  called 
spent  ashes.     Let  us  see  then,  in  leaching,  what  parts 


A    PRIZE    ESSAY.  51 

we  take  awaj.  First,  we  take  away  all  tke  acids 
except  the  pliosplioric.  Secondly,  we  take  away 
nearly  all  the  potasli  and  soda.  What  is  left  ?  Ail 
the  other  bases  and  phosphoric  acid.  It  is  evident, 
therefore,  that  the  strength  of  ashes  can  never  be 
wholly  leached  out,  if  that  depends  upon  the  salts. 
In  spent  ashes,  we  have  nearly  all  the  bonedust  left ; 
and,  besides  this,  a  portion  of  what  is  usually  consid- 
ered the  real  strength,  that  is,  the  potash.  This  is 
chemically  united  to  certain  of  the  other  constituents 
of  ashes.  You  cannot  leach  it  out,  leach  you  ever  so 
long.  Upset  your  leach  tubs,  shovel  over  your  spent 
ashes,  mix  it  up  with  fermenting  manure,  where  a 
plenty  of  fixed  air  is  given  off.  Here  is  the  secret  of 
the  value  of  spent  ashes,  so  far  as  the  potash  or  ley 
strength  is  concerned.  This  exposure  to  air,  to  car- 
bonic acid,  lets  loose  the  potash,  which  was  chemically 
combined  with  the  other  matters.  Water  would 
never  have  done  this.  Mark  now  a  practical  lesson, 
taught  here  by  chemistry,  and  confirmed  by  experi- 
ence. Leached  ashes  must  never  be  used  on  wet  soil, 
if  we  want  its  alkali  to  act.  The  close  wet  soil,  p*er- 
haps  even  half  covered  at  times  with  water,  excludes 
the  air.  The  carbonic  acid  of  air,  that  which  alone 
extracts  the  alkali  from  spent  ashes,  cannot  here  act. 
There  is  this  other  lesson  to  be  learned  from  these 
facts,  that  it  is  chiefly  the  alkaline  action  which  is 
wanted  from  spent  ashes.  Hence  no  one  who  thus 
understands  the  source,  and  the  true  value  of  ashes, 
will  allow  the  alkaline  portion  to  be  first  leached  out, 
unless  he  can  find  a  more  economical  use  for  it  than 
its  application  as  a  fertilizer.  Perhaps  no  fact  speaks 
louder,  that  the  great  action  of  spent  ashes  is  that  of 
its  potash,  than  this,  that  where  we  prevent  that  from 
being  extracted,  the  spent  ashes  are  of  little  value. 
[f,  then,  spent  ashes  derive  their  great  value  from  the 
ootash,  much  more  will  unleached  ashes  derive  their 
value  from  their  potash. 
Now,  reader,  the  point  to  which  I  have  led  you, 


52  MANUEES. 

in  tliese  remarks,  is  this,  that  the  more  alkaline  any 
salt  is,  the  better  is  it  for  manure.  Hence,  as  a  gen- 
eral rule  about  the  use  of  salts,  it  may  be  laid  down 
that  the  alkaline  salts,  that  is,  potash,  pearlash,  com- 
mon ashes,  barilla  ashes,  white,  or  soda  ash,  are  the 
best.  And  as  these,  in  all  their  various  shapes,  are 
the  cheapest  and  most  common  articles,  so  you  need 
not  run  after  a  long  list  of  other  salts.  ISText  in  value 
to  the  real  alkalies,  are  spent  ashes,  used  in  a  light, 
porous,  open,  sandy  soil,  if  you  would  derive  the 
greatest  benefit  from  them.  Next  to  these  come  peat 
ashes.  You  well  know  these  are  of  no  value  to  the 
soapmaker.  But  not  so  to  you.  They  show  only 
traces  of  alkaline  power.  But  treat  them  as  you  did 
spent  ashes.  Their  power,  independent  of  their  bone- 
dust,  which  is  by  no  means  small,  and  their  plaster, 
which  is  still  greater,  and  their  hme,  which  is  perhaps 
the  greatest,  lies  in  the  alkali,  which  is  locked  up,  as 
it  is  in  spent  ashes.  Treat  them,  therefore,  as  you  did 
spent  ashes,  and  then  peat  ashes  will  and  do  afford 
alkali.  So  too  coal  ashes,  even  your  hard  anthracite 
ashes,  yield  all  the  siibstances  which  spent  ashes  do. 
It  is  easily  seen,  therefore,  when,  how,  and  where 
spent  ashes,  peat  ashes,  coal  ashes,  are  most  likely  to 
do  good.  Perhaps  we  may  not  have  a  better  place  to 
state  the  fact,  that  a  cord  of  soap-boilers'  spent  ashes 
contains  about  fifty  pounds  of  potash.  When  we  add 
to  this,  one  hundred  and  seventeen  pounds  of  bone- 
dust,  and  about  a  ton  and  a  half  of  chalk,  or  carbonate 
of  lime,  which  acts  chiefly  on  the  soil,  and  so  comes 
not  now  under  consideration,  it  is  seen  that  there  is 
no  cheaper  source  of  alkali  and  salts,  to  one  within 
reasonable  carting  distance  of  a  soap-boiler,  than  spent 
ashes.  They  are  marl,  bonedust,  plaster,  and  alkali 
combined. 


A   PRIZE   ESSAY.  53 

SECTION   XIII. 

MANURES  COMPOSED   CHIEFLY  OF  MOULD. 

These  are  of  vegetable  or  animal  origin.  And 
first,  of  animal  mould.  Here  we  shall  find  that  we 
come,  perhaps,  better  prepared  to  understand  this 
part  of  our  subject,  than  either  of  the  preceding 
classes.  We  have  explained  the  principles  which  en- 
able us  to  understand  why  it  is  that  animal  and  vege- 
table substances  produce,  by  decay,  identical  matters. 
The  only  difference  consists  in  the  quantity  of  these 
matters. 

Let  me  here,  reader,  call  to  your  remembrance  the 
facts  we  stated  respecting  the  two  classes  of  food,  and 
the  two  classes  of  substances  formed  from  that  food 
by  animals.  A  certain  portion  of  that  food  contains 
none  of  that  principle  which  forms  ammonia.  This 
portion  of  food  makes  fat.  Another  portion  of  food 
contains  the  substance  which  forms  ammonia.  This 
part  of  the  food  forms  flesh  and  blood,  and  the  other 
parts  of  the  body,  skin,  hair,  feathers,  bristles,  wool, 
horns,  hoofs,  nails  and  claws,  thews  and  sinews.  Now, 
when  a  body  dies  and  decays,  the  mould  which  it 
forms  will  be  rich  manure,  or  poor  manure,  just  in 
proportion  as  it  contains  more  or  less  of  the  substances 
formed  out  of  that  portion  of  food  which  furnishes 
flesh  and  blood.  The  fat,  therefore,  in  animal  mould, 
plays  a  very  inferior  part  to  that  acted  by  the  flesh 
and  blood.  In  a  word,  as  I  wish  to  dismiss  the  fatty 
matters  from  our  present  consideration,  I  may  do  this, 
reader,  by  stating  to  you  all  that  you  need  know,  that 
in  decay,  fat  forms  chiefly  carbonic  acid.  If,  therefore, 
you  call  to  mind  what  we  have  said  about  the  action 
3f  that,  you  will  see  how  fat  acts  in  manure.  But  the 
flesh  and  blood,  and  the  substances  formed  from  it, 
give  precisely  the  same  things  as  vegetables  do  when 
■:hey  decay  ;  that  is,  water,  mould,  and  salts. 
3^ 


54  MANURES. 

The  great  difference  between  the  decay  of  animal 
and  vegetable  matters  is  this,  that  as  the  animal 
bodies  are  far  richer  in  the  substance  which  forms 
ammonia,  so  they  afford  a  richer  source  of  manure. 
The  animal  body  contains  that  element  in  quantity 
enough,  not  onl}^  to  fill  the  pores  of  its  own  mould, 
but  also  enough  to  impregnate  a  large  C[uantity  of 
mould  from  other  sources.  The  vegetable  body,  on 
the  contrary,  contains  scarcely  enough  ammonia  to  fill 
its  own  mould.  Yegetables  differ  in  the  quantities  of 
the  elements  of  food  which  can  furnish  flesh  and  bood ; 
and  hence  those  vegetables  are  best  for  manure  which 
furnish  most  ammonia.  We  have  already  remarked 
on  the  difference,  in  this  respect,  between  straws, 
grasses,  and  clover.  But  without  going  further  into 
this  comparison,  which  can  have  no  other  practical 
bearing  than  to  show  you  the  immense  difference  in 
value,  in  animal  and  vegetable  bodies,  in  forming  ma- 
nure, we  may  here  resolve  the  subject  into  one  great 
principle.  The  substance  which  forms  flesh  and  blood, 
whether  derived  from  plants  or  animals,  alone  forms 
ammonia  during  their  decay,  and  the  mould  thence 
arising  is  rich  or  poor  manure," just  in  proportion  as  it 
contains  the  substance  fit  to  form  flesh  and  blood. 
Starting  from  this  principle,  we  find  that  animal  sub- 
stances, as  flesh,  fish,  fowl,  the  body  generally,  includ- 
ing its  various  forms  of  covering,  hair,  wool,  feathers, 
nails,  hoofs,  horns,  claws,  &c.,  afford,  in  the  process  of 
decay,  about  ten  times  more  ammonia  than  the  straws 
and  grasses  usually  entering  into  the  compost  heap. 
The  animal  bodies  give  more  volatile  alkali  than  their 
mould  can  contain. 

It  is  given  off  in  such  quantity  that  decay  is  rapidly 
hastened.  All  the  signs  of  putrefaction,  therefore, 
rapidly  take  place.  The  quantity  of  mould  being 
small,  nothing  holds  the  volatile  parts ;  they  escape 
and  are  lost.  Now  common  sense  and  practical  fore- 
sight have  stepped  in  here,  from  time  immemorial,  and 
taught  mankind  the  necessity  and  the  utility  of  pre- 


A  PEIZE    ESSAY.  55 

venting  tlie  waste  of  the  volatile  and  most  valuable 
parts  of  the  decaying  animal  substances,  by  covering 
them  in  with  earth,  soil,  &c.  These  imbibe  the  es- 
caping virtue  or  strength,  and  become  rich  and  fer- 
tilizing. It  remains  to  state,  that  every  pound  of  ani- 
mal carcass  can  impregnate  ten  pounds  of  vegetable 
mould ;  or,  taking  our  arable  soils  as  they  usually  oc- 
cur, one  pound  of  flesh,  fish,  blood,  wool,  horn,  kc, 
can  fertilize  three  hundred  pounds  of  common  loam. 
You  will  see,  therefore,  reader,  how  little  you  have 
now  to  learn  of  the  necessity  of  saving  everything  in 
the  shape  of  animal  matters,  and  converting  them  to 
manure,  by  turning  them  into  your  compost  heap.  It 
is  to  be  remarked,  that  the  dry  forms  of  animal  sub- 
stances undergo  the  process  of  decay  when  left  to  their 
own  action  very  slowly.  Wool,  hair,  flocks,  horn 
shavings,  &c.,  or  even  leather  chips  and  curriers' 
shavings,  bear  long  exposure,  and  seem  quite  in- 
destructible. They  yet  are  rich  in  all  the  true  virtue 
of  manure.  They  want  something  to  bring  this  out, 
to  set  them  a-working,  to  bring  on  fermentation. 
Well,  on  this  head  we  may  lay  down  two  rules.  The 
first  is,  that  if  buried  among  a  heap  of  fermenting 
matter,  that  communicates  a  similar  change  to  these 
dry,  animal  substances.     This  is  slow  work. 

The  second  rule  is,  that  if  these  dry  matters  are 
buried  in  the  soil  among  the  roots  of  growing  plants, 
then  these  act  more  powerfully  than  fermentation,  and 
the  dry  substances  are  converted  to  manure  with  a 
speed  which  may  be  called  quick,  compared  to  the 
fermenting  process.  The  practical  lesson  to  be  drawn 
from  these  differences  of  action  between  the  fleshy 
and  horny  parts  of  animals  is,  that  when  you  want  a 
quick  and  short  action  of  manure,  to  use  the  fleshy 
and  fluid  parts.  Where  you  want  a  more  slow  and 
permanent  action,  to  commence  and  long  last  after 
the  first  is  over,  to  use  the  dryer  and  harder  parts. 

If  now  we  turn  to  the  other  division  of  mould,  that 
from  vegetables,  we  find  it  lacking  in  the  very  thing 


66  MAXURES. 

which  was  superabundant  in  animal  mould.  That 
thing  is  volatile  alkali.  The  great  mass  of  vegetable 
mould  is  always  impregnated,  but  always  slightly 
charged,  with  volatile  alkali.  There  is  not  enough  of 
the  flesh  and  blood  forming  element  in  vegetables  to 
hasten  the  decay  of  vegetable  matter,  or  to  convert 
them,  after  decay,  into  rich  manure.  Now  here  again 
not  science,  but  practical  common  sense  steps  in,  and 
did  step  in  long  ago,  and  as  she  taught  mankind  the 
necessity  of  adding  soil  or  mould  to  the  decaying  ani- 
mal matter,  so  here,  to  enrich  vegetable  mould,  she 
teaches  that  animal  matter,  or  that  which  is  its  repre- 
sentative, ancaline  salts,  must  be  added  to  vegetable 
mould,  to  make  it  active.  It  is  not  the  mould  alone 
which  plants  want.  We  have  seen  all  along  how  na- 
ture provides  a  certain  amount  of  salts  in  her  virgin 
mould ;  we,  by  cropping,  exhaust  these  faster  than 
the  mould.  We  have  tons  of  that,  yet  our  fields  are 
barren.     They  want,  as  has  been  explained,  salts. 

And  now,  reader,  having  been  brought  by  this  course 
of  reasoning  to  what  the  mould  wants,  consider  what  tons 
and  tons  of  useless  mould  you  have  in  your  swamp  muck 
and  peat  bogs,  your  hassocks,  and  your  turfy  meadows. 
All  these,  foot  upon  foot  in  depth  as  they  lie,  are  truly 
vegetable  mould,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  of  decay. 
If  joMi  dig  this  Mp,  and  expose  it  to  the  air,  that  itself 
sets  it  to  work,  decay  is  hastened,  volatile  matters 
escape,  yea,  ammonia,  the  master  spirit  among  manures, 
is  secretly  forming  and  at  work,  warming  and  sweet- 
ening the  cold  and  sour  muck.  Without  further  pre- 
paration, practice  confirms  what  theory  teaches,  that 
this  process  alone  furnishes  from  these  beds  of  vege- 
table mould  a  very  good  manure.  It  is  already  highly 
charged  with  all  the  salts  which  a  plant  wants.  But 
experience,  doubtless  led  by  the  light  of  the  good  re- 
sults of  mixing  mould  with  animal  matter,  to  preserve 
its  strength,  has  also  reversed  the  practice,  and  taught 
the  ntihty  of  adding  to  vegetable  mould  quickening 
salts ;  that  is,  either  the  volatile  alkali,  by  composting 


A   PRIZE   ESSAY.     .  57 

the  mould  with  stable  manure,  or  alkali  in  the  shape 
of  ashes,  or  potash,  or  soda  ash,  or  lime,  or  a  mixture 
of  these.  In  fact,  whatever  substance  can  by  putre- 
faction give  oif  volatile  alkali,  will  and  must  and  does 
convert  vegetable  mould,  of  itself  dead  and  inactive, 
into  a  quick  and  fertilizing  manure. 

If  then,  reader,  3'ou  pause  here  a  moment  upon  this 
fact,  and  then  cast  your  view  backward  over  the  prin- 
ciples we  have  endeavored  to  impress  on  your  memory, 
you  will  perceive  that  there  is  not,  among  all  the  class- 
es and  kinds  of  manure  which  we  have  shown  you, 
one  which  may  not  be  added,  or,  as  is  the  phrase,  com- 
posted with  peat,  meadow  mud,  swamp  muck,  pond 
mud,  or  by  whatever  other  name  these  great  store- 
houses of  vegetable  matter  are  called.  These  are  the 
true  sources  of  abundant  manure,  to  all  whose  stock 
of  cattle,  &c,,  is  too  small  to  give  manure  enough  for 
the  farmer's  use.  It  is  the  farmer's  business  to  make 
a  choice,  if  he  has  any  but  Hobson's,  of  what  substance, 
or  mixture  of  substances,  he  will  use.  We  have  shown 
him  how  small  a  portion  of  animal  matter,  one  to  ten 
of  pure  mould,  will  impregnate  that  substance.  Tak- 
ing then  a  cord  of  this  swamp  muck,  we  shall  find  it 
contains,  in  round  numbers,  about  one  thousand  pounds 
of  real  dry  vegetable  mould.  So  that  the  carcass  of 
an  animal  weighing  one  hundred  pounds,  evenly  and 
well  mixed  up  with  a  cord  of  fresh-dug  muck,  will 
make  a  cord  of  manure,  containing  all  the  elements, 
and  their  amount  too,  of  a  cord  of  dung. 

But  it  is  not  from  the  carcasses  of  animals  that  the 
farmer  expects  to  derive  the  quickening  salts  for  his 
muck.  This  can  be  the  source  of  that  power  only  to 
the  butchers,  (what  fat  lands  they  all  have  !)  or  to  the 
dwellers  near  the  sea,  where  fish  is  plenty.  A  barrel 
of  alewives,  it  is  said,  fertilizes  a  wagon  load  of  loam. 
The  carcass  of  a  horse  converts  and  fertilizes  five  or 
six  cords  of  swamp  muck.  A  cord  of  clear  stable 
dung  changes  two  cords  of  this  same  muck  into  a 
manure  as  rich  and  durable  as  stable  manure  itself. 


58  MANURES. 

These  are  all  the  results,  reader,  of  actual  practice. 
The  explanation  of  the  principle  has  only  come  in 
since  the  practice,  and  showed  t*ne  how  and  the  why 
of  this  action.  But  the  merit  of  explaining  this  action 
would  be,  is  nothing,  if  it  had  not  conducted  one  step 
further. 

The  explanation  of  the  principle  of  action  of  animal 
matters,  animal  manures  of  all  kinds,  whether  solid  or 
liquid,  on  muck  or  peat,  has  led  chemistry  to  propose, 
where  these  cheap  and  common  forms  of  quickening 
power,  are  not  to  be  had,  to  mix  ashes,  or  potash,  or 
soda  ash  with  swamp  muck.  Now,  reader,  this  is  not 
an  idle,  visionary,  book-farming  scheme.  It  is  perhaps 
one  of  the  few  successful,  direct  applications  of  chem- 
istry to  farming,  which  speaks  out  in  defence  of  such 
book-farming,  in  tones  and  terms  which  bespeak  your 
favorable  consideration  for  the  attempt  which  science 
is  making  to  lend  you,  reader,  a  helping  hand.  This 
proposal,  the  offspring  of  science,  has  been  carried  out 
successfull}^  by  practical  men  in  our  own  country,  and 
has  made  its  way  abroad.  Though  this  is  not  the  place 
to  give  you  the  details  of  their  results,  you  may  rely 
upon  the  fact,  that  alkali  and  swamp  muck  do  form 
a  manure,  cord  for  cord,  in  all  soils,  equal  to  stable 
dung. 

Well  now,  after  your  patience  in  going  over  these 
pages,  I  hope  you  will  find  your  reward  in  this  state- 
ment. To  be  sure,  it  might  have  been  said  at  once, 
and  so  have  done  with  it ,  but  I  hoped,  reader,  and  I 
am  sure  I  have  not  been  disappointed,  that  you  liked 
to  dive  a  little  into  the  reason  of  things,  and  felt  that 
you  had  farmed  too  long  by  the  rule  of  thumb,  to  be 
satisfied  that  it  was  the  road  either  to  improvement 
or  profit.  And  so  among  your  first  attempts  at  im- 
proving your  worn-out  lands,  always  supx)Osing  that 
you  have  a  barn  cellar,  hogs,  and  swamp  muck,  so 
aptly  called  by  one  of  your  own  self-made  practical 
men,  the  "farmer's  locomotive,"  I  presume  you  may 
like  to  know  the  proportions'  in  which  you  may  mix 


A   PRIZE   ESSAY.  69 

swamp  muck  and  alkali.  You  can  laardly  go  wrong 
here  by  using  too  much  ;  the  great  danger  is,  you  will 
use  too  little  alkali.  But  calculating  on  the  propor- 
tion of  mould  in  fresh-dug  swamp  muck,  or  peat,  it 
may  be  stated  as  a  rule,  grounded  on  the  quantity  of 
quickening  power  in  a  cord  of  stable  manure,  that 
every  cord  of  swamp  muck  requires  eight  bushels  of 
common  ashes,  or  thirty  pounds  of  common  potash,  or 
twenty  pounds  of  white  or  soda  ash,  to  convert  it  into 
manure  equal,  cord  for  cord,  to  that  from  your  stable. 
Dig  up  your  peat  in  the  fall,  let  it  lie  over  winter  to 
fall  to  powder,  calculate  your  quantity  when  fresh  dug, 
and  allow  nothing  for  shrinking  in  the  spring ;  when 
your  alkali  is  to  be  well  mixed  in  Avith  the  mould,  and, 
after  shovelling  over  for  a  few  weeks,  use  it  as  you 
would  stable  manure. 

Tiese  quantities  of  ashes  and  alkali  are  the  lowest 
which   may   be   advised.     Three  or  four  times  this 
amount  may  be  used  with  advantage,  but  both  the 
quantity  of  alkali  and  the  number  of  loads  per  acre 
must  and  will  be  determined  by  each  for  himself.     It 
is  a  question  of  ways  and  means,  rather  than  of  prac- 
tice.    But  supposing  the  smallest  quantity  of  ashes  or 
of  alkali  to  be  used,  which  we  have  advised,  then  at 
least  five  cords  of  the  compost  should  be  used  per 
acre.     This  may  be  applied  to  any  soil,  light  or  heavy. 
But  there  is  another  form  of  this  same  swamp  muck 
and  alkali,  which  should  be  used  only  on  light,  loamy, 
sandy  soils,  to  produce  its  greatest  benefit,  though 
even  on  heavy  soils,  if  not  very  wet,  it  may  be  used 
with  great  advantage.     This  is  a  compost  of  one  cord 
of  spent  ashes  to  three  cords  of  swamp  muck.     This 
is  decidedly  the  best  mixture  which  has  yet  been  tried. 
TVe  have  in  this  all  that  mixture  of  various  salt  and 
mould  which  plants  want,  and  both  by  the  action  of 
the  mould  and  by  that  of  the  air,  the  alkali  of  the 
spent  ashes,  which  no  leaching  would  extract,  is  soon 
let  loose,  and  produces  all  the  effects  of  so  much  clear 
potash  or  soda. 


QO  MANURES. 

I  have  thus,  reader,  given  you  a  few  of  the  ways 
by  which  you  may  convert  your  j)eat  bogs  and  swampa 
into  manure,  when  you  have  neither  cattle  nor  hogs. 
I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  go  into  this  sub- 
ject further,  and  give  you  directions  for  lime  and  salt, 
or  other  matters  which  might  be  used.  I  have  given 
you  the  most  common,  and  those  well  known  and  at 
hand.  All  you  want,  then,,  to  apply  these  principles 
of  forming  composts,  is  to  give  them  that  little  atten- 
tion which  will  enable  you  to  understand  them.  And 
the  rest  must  be  left  to  your  practical  common  sense, 
without  some  share  of  which,  farming,  like  every- 
thing else,  would  be  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit. 


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